I guess knowing personally is one thing, but meeting and sharing an in depth conversation with one is something I've done. Long story about why we crossed paths, but the guy was Zoran Cutura, who had a silver as a member of the 1988 Yugoslavian basketball team. He was a backup center on that team and eventually became a sports journalist. His English la gauge skills were impeccable.
I suppose an interesting backstory would have been about how the Serbs got along with the Croats who made up most of the team. He had great things to say about Drazen Petrovic, who died in a car crash, as well as Toni Kukoc, who he thought did well in the NBA. He was frank when I asked him what he thought of Vlade Divac and this reputation for flopping. He said he had lots and lots of talent, but that he was "a lazy son of a *****". I don't think it's anything he hadn't said before in interviews about his opinion of Divac.
As a Croatian sports journalist, he also had great things to say about the swimmer Duje Draganja. He came close to getting his silver medal stripped for a uniform violation, where he wore his lucky script Cal swim cap instead of the regulation national flag swim cap. There was talk about it, but he was never disqualified.
