Warriors coach Steve Kerr has called the death of his Golden State colleague Dejan Milojevic ‘the saddest thing I’ve ever been a part of in the NBA‘ less than a week after the assistant died of a heart attack.
Milojevic, 46, died on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack at Valter’s Osteria, an Italian restaurant in Salt Lake City.
‘It’s hard to describe the week – heartbreaking, devastating,’ Kerr told reporters on Monday as he wore a shirt which read ‘BROTHER’ in Serbian. ‘It’s just the saddest thing I’ve ever been a part of in the NBA.
‘Where we lose someone who’s so close to us and then more importantly, seeing his family suffer. So this last week has been… full of all of the above. The shock, the emotion, the extreme outpouring of love from all over the world.
Kerr said the Warriors watched the tributes for Milojevic from today’s Partizan Belgrade – Mega Basket game in Serbia. Milojevic starred for Partizan as a player and coached Mega for eight years.
‘We got a better sense of just what Deki meant to his countrymen,’ Kerr said.
Toronto Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic, who is also Serbian, dedicated his team’s win last Wednesday to his late friend.
And reigning NBA champion Nikola Jokic also paid tribute to Milojevic, posting a picture of himself with the coach, writing: ‘Deki, rest in peace! Condolences to the family!’
Milojevic coached a young Jokic at Mega Basket.
Kerr, who lost his own father when he was 18 years old, said he understood what Milojevic’s children, Nikola and Masa, were going through.
‘It’s kind of crazy but Friday was the 40th anniversary of my dad’s death,’ he told reporters.
Kerr added that ‘Deki had an amazing way of being very direct and honest without threatening anyone. Sometimes those coaches meetings can get contentious… he always just had a gleam in his eye and a laugh even when he was challenging us – especially when he was challenging the rest of the group.
‘He was just a guy who constantly saw the good in people and the joy in life… when you’re coming into a season that goes from seven to nine months, that’s exactly the kind of person I wanna be with every day.
Kerr also thanked NBA commissioner Adam Silver for postponing two of the Warriors’ games last week following Milojevic’s death.’
‘There’s no way any of us could have walked out onto a court and played a basketball game,’ he said.
