Vlade Divac has seen the effects of battle on and off the basketball court.

On the court, he battled his way into the top ranks of the National Basketball Association. However, the battles off the court, particularly in his native Serbia, have deeply influenced the former NBA great to do what he can to alleviate the suffering of children. On his way Sunday to a fundraiser at the Topaz Café in Burr Ridge for one of his charities, Humanitarian Organization Divac, he stopped at Hinsdale Adventist Academy to talk to students and their families.

"Most of my time I spend in different projects helping people who need at least the first step of help, like finding a place to live," he said in an interview following his speech to the school's basketball players. "I had a great life. I had a great career. Like I said to the kids, 'Down the road, you stop, turn your head, and see if you can't help somebody around you because tomorrow you may be in the same situation.'"

Divac, who is 1 inch over 7 feet tall, spent 16 seasons in the NBA, retiring in 2005. He is one of only six players in NBA history to accumulate 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists, and 1,500 blocked shots, putting him in the elite company of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett and Hakeem Olajuwon.

Jabbar's retirement in 1989 prompted the Los Angeles Lakers to pick Divac in the first round of that year's draft. The first non-American ever drafted by the Lakers, he made an immediate impact, averaging nine points and six rebounds per game, and was named to the 1989-90 NBA All-Rookie First Team.

In 1991, the Lakers reached the NBA finals against the Chicago Bulls.

"I was very happy when we beat them the first game," Divac told the audience of nearly 100 players and their families, "but very sad when they won the next four."

That sadness, however, was nothing compared to the despair he felt that year when Yugoslavia, which Serbia was then a part of, began breaking apart in a series of bloody conflicts that divided the nation along ethnic lines. Divac had represented Yugoslavia in a number of international competitions, including the 1988 Olympics, winning a silver medal.

Because of the war, there was no Yugoslav entry in the 1992 Olympics. One of the Hinsdale Adventist players asked Divac if Yugoslavia could have beaten the American Dream Team that year.

"That's a good question," he responded. "We would have given them a hard time, definitely."

Yugoslavia had a number of outstanding players, including NBA players Dino Rada, former Bull Toni Kukoc, and Drazen Petrovic. Divac and Petrovic, a Croatian, were close friends until an incident following Yugoslavia's victory in the 1990 World Championships. Excited fans rushed the court, including one holding a Croatian flag. Saying it was a victory for the entire nation, Divac took the flag from him after the man allegedly made a derogatory remark about the national banner.

Croatia's battle to gain independence from Yugoslavia beginning the following year further strained Divac's relationship with Petrovic, who died in 1998 at the age of 28 in a car accident.

The relationship between the two men is at the heart of the recent ESPN documentary, "Once Brothers." Narrated by Divac, it chronicles the impact Yugoslavia's civil war had on the members of the national basketball team. Near the end of the film, Divac pays a visit to Petrovic's grave in Croatia.

"I always thought the day would come when Drazen and I would sit down and talk," he says. "But that day never came."

The scars of war remain evident throughout the former Yugoslavia. As of 2007, Serbia still had half a million war refugees, including nearly 8,000 living in makeshift camps.

That year, Divac started a humanitarian organization to aid refugees called You Can Too.

"We are trying to rebuild their lives," he told the kids in Hinsdale. "People around the world are helping, especially in the United States."

In 1997, Divac and some of his former Serbian basketball teammates founded a charity called Group Seven, now known as Divac's Children Foundation. The organization's mission is "to provide care, education, and healthy environment for children who suffer from isolation, poverty and displacement, without regards to politics, race, ethnicity or religion."

The charity has helped provide clothing and shoes for children in refugee camps in Serbia, but also has offered assistance in many other countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ethiopia, Indonesia, China, and the United States following Hurricane Katrina.

At the time he helped start Group Seven, Divac was playing his second and last season with the Charlotte Hornets, having been traded by the Lakers at the end of the 1996 season. In response to a question from a player, Divac admitted he was "very upset," when he was traded.

"I had a great life in Los Angeles and had to move to Charlotte without my family," he said.

But he said he decided use the trade as an opportunity for another learning experience to help him develop his game.

"That's life," he told the kids. "Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

One of the skills Divac honed with the Lakers, Hornets, and then the Sacramento Kings, was "flopping," the art of falling to the floor after making contact with an opponent an effort to convince the officials to call a foul. Fabio Andrade, 17, asked Divac if he was the best at flopping.

"It's no contest," Divac answered. "It's me and then a big gap. I mastered it."

Divac then invited Andrade to join him for an impromptu demonstration of how to flop.

"It was great, man," Andrade said. "He is so tall and he makes me look like an ant. It was so cool to have him here in our school."

Divac's visit to the school was made possible by Alex Bokich of Burr Ridge, father of  children who attend Hinsdale Adventist Academy and one of the organizers of the Humanitarian Organization Divac event at the Topaz Café.

"I just put two and two together," he said. "Why not come a little bit earlier and talk to the kids … show them the things he's done on the court and off the court? Actually for me, as an older person, what he's doing off the court is much more impressive than what he did on the court."