Around Steve Kerr it is changing a lot technical staff of the Warriors house ahead of next season, eagerly awaited on the Bay (given the return of Klay Thompson and James Wiseman). Via Jarron Collins, Theo Robertson and Luke Loucks, three assistants (of different weight), alongside coach Kerr remain Mike Brown (his first deputy) Bruce Fraser and Chris DeMarco, as well as the eternal Ron Adams, who after taking a step back last year could go back to playing a bigger role. But the most interesting news on the Californian bench will be that of Dejan Milojevic, the coach who for years has linked his name to that of the Mega Company Profile, the Serbian power he trained for almost a decade (from 2011 to 2020) and that in this period it produced 11 NBA picks. Of these, five actually made it into the league, none more famous than the very recent MVP Nikola Jokic (the others are Ivica Zubac, Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot, Vlatko Čančar e Goga Bitadze). The two most high-sounding names – those of Jokic and Zubac – give the main clue behind Milojevic’s hiring of the Warriors: he is used to train and develop long, even better if young, and the prospect of entrusting the Serbian master with all the talent of James Wiseman evidently convinced Bob Myers and coach Kerr. Milojevic – who Jokic himself has often referred to as the most influential manager of his career – was first player (“A center without too many centimeters, did not reach two meters “, says Jokic, a description that goes hand in hand with the nickname “The Serbian Barkley” with which he is known at home) but he has collected the greatest satisfactions as a coach, also arousing a lot of interest overseas. Hawks (in 2016), Spurs (in 2017) and Rockets (in 2018) they wanted him on their coaching staff for three consecutive years during the Summer League, but now it was the Warriors – intrigued by the possibility of entrusting Milojevic with a diamond still in the rough like Wiseman – to offer him the first real chance.
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He worked with a 19-year-old Zubac and Jokic from 17 to his 20, just the age of Wiseman. The current NBA MVP often recounts that all “weird” shots (including the famous “Sombor shuffle” on one foot) were built in the gym with the help of Milojevic, an expert in having to invent absurd shots (as a player) to prevent the opposing centers, bigger and bigger than him, from always returning the ball to him in the stands. Now the bag of tricks is called to carry it on the San Francisco Bay: if Wiseman will blossom as many expect, and Thompson will return to being a “Spash Brother”, suddenly Golden State scares everyone again.
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