Life in the NBA didn’t suit Darko Milicic, so instead of banging in the paint with other 7-footers, he’s back in his home country tending to his land as a farmer.
“Basketball I do not miss. I live very well, thank God. I have my interests, interests in agriculture,” Milicic told BlicSport.rs, a Serbian publication. “In the NBA, I went as a kid, barely an adult, I had the right attitude as it should have. I do not hate basketball, but I look at it, it might be too much to say — with indifference.”
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Milicic, the second overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Pistons, played 10 seasons with Detroit, Orlando, Memphis, New York, Minnesota and Boston, but never averaged more than 8.8 points per game in a season.
Still only 30 years old, Milicic said he never got the chance to be an impact player in the league. As an 18-year-old rookie, Milicic played in just 34 games and averaged 4.7 minutes in those appearances. In his second year, he started two games and played in 37.
"It is brutal system in America and I do not like it,” he said (via Detroit Free Press). “You've got players who are first, second picks, and they immediately get an opportunity to play. I never got the chance. LeBron James is a killer, but the first year, they gave him a chance."
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Milicic was sandwiched between James and Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in the 2003 Draft, one he said may be considered the “strongest in the history of that draft (if it wasn’t for me).”
Now, as a farmer in Novi Sad with his wife and two children, Milicic can escape his basketball past and the NBA. At least until his son takes up the game. Seven-year-old Sin Lazar has already said he wants to play in the NBA, claiming “I will be better than my dad.”