Praise from players show Raptors made right choice with Rajakovic
“I’ve gotten so close to Darko. He’s a coach that you can just talk to, honestly, about anything.” RJ Barrett
Raptors player
At season-ending media availability this week, over and over, Raptors players kept pointing out the same thing about their relationship with head coach Darko Rajakovic: Conversations with their boss went way beyond just X’s and O’s and, more often than not, had nothing to do with basketball altogether.
It was part of the reason why the Raptors went with Rajakovic last summer knowing at some point someone would have to connect with young people both on and off the court for a coming rebuild. They wanted a genuine human who knew the game, but also knew about life. They seem to have found just that in the Serbian-born Rajakovic.
“I’ve gotten so close to Darko. He’s a coach that you can just talk to, honestly, about anything,” RJ Barrett said. “A lot of our conversations sometimes have nothing to do with basketball. He checks on me a lot, for sure. I appreciate him in more than just a basketball sense.”
Immanuel Quickley concurred, saying:”I think the person part is probably the biggest thing that I’ve taken away from Darko. I think we probably talked more about off the court stuff than we do about basketball stuff, which is pretty cool to have as a coach. But when we talk about basketball, his attention to detail is second to none.”
Jakob Poeltl echoed those thoughts, even comparing Rajakovic to one of his mentors, Gregg Popovich.
“He’s the type of person that will always make himself available to talk to you or for you to come talk to him,” Poeltl said. “Maybe something basketball related or some personal struggles that you have. So I think in that aspect of him just being so, so open and available, there is something I’ve seen from (Popovich) in the past. Being able to … How do I put this? Pop had this ability to be very serious about basketball, but then also be able to get away from basketball and just talk about something completely different and …
“He always understood that we’re here to play basketball … but there’s other things going on in the world. There’s bigger issues in the world than, like, a game of basketball. So him just like being able to put that into perspective over and over again is something that I see some similarities as well in Darko where you don’t just have to talk to him about basketball every day.”
Scottie Barnes pointed out that Rajakovic was the first to call him to check in and offer support when he was in hospital getting surgery on his hand.
Rajakovic said people often forget that professional athletes have more going on than just playing their sport.
“It’s so easy to look at NBA players and to judge that everything is perfect with their lives and everything is easy because what everybody sees … they see those guys for two-and-a-half hours on bright lights, you know, and all of them they’re much more than just basketball players,” Rajakovic said.
“They have families, they have interests, they have confidence, they can (have) lack of confidence, they’re dealing with so (much) stuff that you and I and everybody else has been dealing with in our lives, and I think it’s very important to acknowledge that. And for them to know that I stand behind them, that this organization stands behind them. I think it gives them extra motivation to give back to be the best they can be on the court for us and for themselves.”