By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Darko Rajakovic worked for nine years as an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Phoenix Suns, and Memphis Grizzlies before becoming the head coach of the Toronto Raptors last summer.
Upon finishing his first season at the helm of the NBA team, and becoming the first foreign tactician to do so, he spoke to Meridian Sport about his experience with the Raptors, starting with how he was given the opportunity to work with the Canadian side.
“I was in Memphis; we finished the playoff series against the Lakers, and the very next morning, I had my first job interview, which was just an introduction. Toronto interviewed over 15 coaches in the first round, both those with head coaching experience and assistants… There were six rounds of interviews, and the second time I already traveled to Toronto, had meetings from eight in the morning until five in the afternoon, talked to the medical staff, conditioning coaches, we even had a mock interview with the media, with a room full of journalists and people from the organization who asked me both pleasant and unpleasant questions to see how I would handle them. The process lasted almost two months, and the last round of interviews was a meeting with the team owner, which lasted two and a half hours. I was fortunate and privileged to be offered the contract and to get the job,” Rajakovic explained the whole interview process behind his acquisition with Toronto.
His first season was full of ups and downs. The Raptors decided to rebuild midway through it and stayed out of the playoffs with a 25-57 regular season record. However, he believes it was a positive experience.
“The first season was very interesting. We started with one team and finished with a completely different one. The club decided to rebuild the team mid-season. We had a large number of injuries, and a lot of unforeseen things happened, but I consider all of that extremely positive and good for us as an organization and for me as a coach because I had the opportunity to face many situations, both expected and unexpected. This helped me mature even more as a coach and a leader. We are preparing for the next season with a lot of desire and enthusiasm.”
The 45-year-old coach, born in the Serbian town of Cacak, also talked about bringing the Canadian NBA team to his home country.
“We are working on it,” Rajakovic teased about the mentioned possibility.
He also gave his insight into his compatriot and three-time NBA MVP, Nikola Jokic, and his overseas dominance among the best players in the world.
“He comes from Serbia, a small country, and he has done extraordinary things that have not been seen before. He is slowly entering the category where we don’t talk about him as the best or one of the best players in the NBA right now, but he can enter the conversation of the greatest NBA players of all time. The way he plays, how he makes his teammates better, and how he leads the team is impressive. A guy who comes from Sombor, from small Serbia, and has managed to achieve such great things. As much as we love and respect him because he is ours, we are not aware of the moment we are living in. What he is doing is commendable and so far unseen in the NBA.”
Rajakovic also talked about preparing for games against his fellow Serbian and the Denver Nuggets.
“It makes our job much harder, especially when we play against him. Preparing for him and playing against him is very demanding and challenging. He is really a player who often sees the game the way we coaches see it when we stop the video, rewind it, move it forward, backward. He sees it instantly or is even a step ahead on the court. He is not the fastest, the most agile, the strongest, yet he dominates the game. The reason why Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world is that in 100 percent of situations, he makes the best decision.”
As a former Crvena Zvezda youth coach, Rajakovic also touched on the way the NBA looks at European, and more precisely, Serbian basketball.
“Definitely, everyone recognizes the results of the Serbian national team first, and then of Partizan and Crvena Zvezda, as well as their competition in the EuroLeague. When you mention them in NBA circles, everyone knows who you are talking about, which teams they are, and what they mean for European and world basketball,” Darko Rajakovic concluded.