PHILADELPHIA -- When the Sacramento Kings made him the 14th overall pick of the 1996 NBA draft, Peja Stojakovic realized that a lifelong dream had come true. The league that he watched in the wee hours as a kid in Yugoslavia had come calling.

He just had to explain to his parents what this "NBA" thing meant.

"They didn't know anything about basketball," Stojakovic said. "Fourteenth pick? What does that mean? Fourteenth pick of what?"

	Stojakovic may not have been a lottery pick, but he should have been.

Kings fans needed an explanation, too. They had no clue who this 19-year-old kid from the Greek pro league was, much less pronounce his name properly. Six years later, Sacramento and the rest of the NBA sees the vision general manager Geoff Petrie had for Stojakovic and the franchise.

Essentially, the Kings and Stojakovic have grown up together. This season -- Stojakovic's fourth in the NBA -- the Kings have matured into a bona fide title contender with a league-best record of 37-12, while Stojakovic has developed into a full-fledged NBA all-star with a career-best 22.6 scoring average.

"He is more experienced and more confident," Kings swingman Hedo Turkoglu said of Stojakovic. "That is why he has stepped it up more this year. He is more confident about shooting the ball."

"He gets better every year," teammate and fellow All-Star Chris Webber said. "He's one of the hardest workers I've ever seen. He shoots more than anybody I've seen. He deserves it.

"But I can't imagine coming from another country."

Stojakovic followed a path much traveled by Europe's top basketball players. For him, though, language and culture wasn't that big of an obstacle. The toughest adjustment was getting used to the day-in, day-out rigors of the NBA.

"Just competing at a higher level each and every night, it was a hard thing to do," he said.

Going from the MVP of the Greek league to the Kings' bench wasn't easy, either. After scoring 23.9 points a game for the Greek club PAOK, Stojakovic averaged just 8.4 points and shot just 37.8 percent his rookie season with Sacramento.

Stojakovic's frustration led to depression. After just one season, he was ready to go home. Luckily for the Kings, teammate Vlade Divac, who was familiar with making the transatlantic jump to the NBA, preached patience to Stojakovic.

	“	You have to earn everything in this league. First of all, you have to earn the status on your team, with your coaching staff and your teammates, and then you have to work your way in the league with opponents and other people. That's how you get respect. ”
		— Peja Stojakovic, Kings forward

"Vlade told me my time was going to come," said Stojakovic, who played in 48 games and averaged 21.4 minutes as a rookie. "I was just waiting. I made a decision that I wanted to stay three more years. When my contract expires and I'm still not happy, I'm gone. But everything went well after that."

Stojakovic has improved his game every year since, lifting his scoring average to 11.9 his second season and to 20.4 last year. His newfound confidence shows in his shooting, too. Stojakovic's field-goal and 3-point percentages sit at career bests of 48.2 and 43.3 percent this season.

In fact, no one in the league right now has a better outside touch than Stojakovic. He confirmed it on NBA All-Star Saturday by winning the 3-point shootout.

"I'm not surprised," Webber said. "I told Peja every year you're going to have to keep getting better because I just want to ride your back. When I get older, I want to let him keep doing all the work and me doing nothing."

"You have to earn everything in this league," Stojakovic said. "First of all, you have to earn the status on your team, with your coaching staff and your teammates, and then you have to work your way in the league with opponents and other people. That's how you get respect."

Stojakovic doesn't go by his first name "Pedrag" anymore. Nor does he struggle to get playing time. His teammates still kid him about his sense of fashion, though.

"We wear a little bit tighter jeans," he said. "That's the way we dress in Europe."

Joe Lago is an NBA editor for ESPN.com.