By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The 2003 NBA Draft was one of the best, possibly ever, and curiously, the Detroit Pistons selected Darko Milicic as the second overall pick. LeBron James was first, and Carmelo Anthony was third.
Melo recently spoke about going after Darko and ending up with the Denver Nuggets instead of joining the championship-caliber Pistons, admitting he wanted to confront Milicic and prove Detroit wrong.
“I heard stories about Darko and the Detroit Pistons, and I immediately got ready to head there. I had to find out where he trained to track him down. Where are they hiding him? I wondered. I went to every gym to find him. Yes, that’s a true story. I wanted to find him, beat him one-on-one, and show that I should have been the first pick for the Detroit Pistons,” Anthony said, speaking on Dwayne Wade’s podcast.
It didn’t take long for the former Serbian player to respond.
“He’s still whining about something to this day… What are you whining about? You’re third! What do you want? Are you crazy? Maybe if I were third, I’d still be playing, and he’d be picking apples,” Milicic said on the Jao Mile podcast to another former Serbian NBA player, Mile Ilic.
Anthony went on to have a Hall-of-Fame career but never won a Championship. Milicic played 468 games for the Pistons, Orlando, Memphis, New York, Minnesota, and Boston but didn’t fulfill his potential. On the other hand, he won the championship in his first season.
“I heard he was after me, but I didn’t see him; I have no idea. If he wanted, he would’ve seen me, he would’ve found me, he knew where I was. Those are their gangster stories, you know, like: ‘I was looking for him to show him.’ What do you want to show me? I heard his emotions got the better of him; he needs to calm down pronto,” Milicic concluded.