Jokic requests privacy after former coach Dejan Milojevic’s death
INDIANAPOLIS >> Nikola Jokic’s eyes lit up more than usual when the next question was about basketball.
In a week of shock and grief, the sport Jokic is widely perceived to trivialize has in fact been a sanctuary and source of joy. He didn’t want to speak much about his former coach, Dejan Milojevic, during his first interview since Milojevic’s unexpected death at age 46 last week. But when the questions turned from that topic to the Nuggets’ stirring 114109 over the Pacers, Jokic — a superstar known for his occasionally sardonic dealings with the press — enthusiastically reviewed the game.
Of all the ways to honor his mentor, that might have been the most fitting.
With subtlety and passion for basketball, the connection they shared.
“I don’t want to make a circus of it,” Jokic said Tuesday, acknowledging that it has been a sad week for him. “My whole family was shocked. … I love his whole family.”
Jokic’s wife and daughter made a rare road game appearance for Denver’s win Sunday in Washington, where he scored a season-high 42 points on 15-of-20 shooting. It was the first time they had a chance to be together since the tragic news that shook the NBA and international basketball community. Milojevic, who was an assistant coach for the Warriors, suffered a heart attack during a team dinner last Tuesday and died the next day.
Jokic played under Milojevic at the Serbian club Mega Basket before and after the Nuggets drafted him in 2014. Under Milojevic, the center won MVP of the Adriatic League.
He has ascended beyond the wildest expectations for an NBA second-round pick in the years since, winning two league MVPs and an NBA Finals MVP. Even with all of those accolades, Jokic’s last three games might have been some of his greatest and most meaningful.
He scored 34 points in the Nuggets’ signature win
reer homers were launched from 20th and Blake, where he posted a sickening 1.048 career OPS. But his lifetime road OPS of .855 was higher than nodoubt HOFers Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Eddie Murray, Dave Winfield and George Brett. Do we hold Kaufmann Stadium’s cavernous outfield gaps and rock-hard, singles-friendly Astroturf in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s against No. 5?
Does Facebook hold Oakland’s plenitude of foul territory against the careers of legendary arms such as Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers or Catfish Hunter? Do the Cooperstown justice warriors on “X” hold Fenway Park or Old Yankee Stadium’s contours against generations of fence-assisted career stats? In New York and Boston, it’s a charming, baked-in quirk. In Denver, it’s a disqualifying sin?
What righteous baloney. Tough guys don’t need excuses. Or asterisks. And yet, the Rockies plopped Helton on the trading block in the winter of 2006-07, as the injuries mounted, as age 31 became 32, as the home runs dipped from 20 in 2005 to 15 in ’06. Boston came the closest, but wouldn’t part with Craig Hansen or Manny Delcarmen. One of the best trades a star-crossed franchise never made thankfully died on the vine.
Because baseball sometimes rhymes, several months later, Rocktober brought Helton and the Red Sox together — only as opponents in the postseason. It was then that Helton reunited with a teenage left-hander, a first baseman who also wore No. 17. Nate Jurney, a former Rockies Rookie then playing baseball at Ralston Valley, threw out the first pitch before Game 1 of the 2007 NLCS. Jurney was 17 at the time, and fighting a losing battle with cancer. He met Helton, shook his hand, took an autographed baseball home. The family still’s got it.
Nate passed away in May 2010. But he kept a shrine to the Toddfather and the Rockies, a “Helton Wall of Fame,” through thick and thin.
“He had a great conversation with Todd prior to (Game 1) and he introduced (Nate) to other players as well,” Mark Jurney, Nate’s father, emailed me Tuesday.
“I know that his experiences were priceless. Seeing Todd get selected to the (Hall of Fame) would be a tremendous accomplishment and I know Nate has been voting for him all along.”
It took the scribes a little longer to follow a Heavenly hint. But they got there.
“You’re going to be in the Hall of Fame someday,”
Dugger told Helton, back in 2010, about three years before No. 17 hung ’em up.
Helton looked at Doogie as if he was wearing a rubber duck for a hat.
“No, dude,” the trainer continued. “You have what it takes to be there. You’ve got all the intangibles. You might be short on a couple of these (counting) stats, but you’re going to be up there.” Helton shrugged.
Not now, Mick. Not the time.
“When guys are playing, they don’t look at that stuff, nor should they,” Dugger said. “It’s not until the very end of their careers that they look.
“Todd would be hitting .310 and be unhappy sometimes. I was like, ‘Yeah, dude. Not everybody hits .350.’”
Few pull it off twice. Fewer still ride that lightning all the way to Cooperstown, through Hades and back, spitting nails with every step.