Good evening, basketball fans, and welcome to yet another volume of The Best Plays You’ve Never Seen Before! In this special edition post you will find five of the best highlights produced by Darko Milicic, the notorious Serbian center selected second overall by the Detroit Pistons in 2003. Over the course of his unsuccessful nine-year NBA career, which very possibly ended today when he was waived by the Boston Celtics, Darko cemented his status as one of the worst draft picks of all-time. Chosen ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and other accomplished NBA veterans, Milicic became a punchline as he failed not only to live up to expectations, but to become even a pseudo-serviceable rotation player.
Assuming he never does find his way back to the league (never a safe assumption, but whatever), Darko makes his exit with little more than a truckload of cash to show for his near 500 games spent in the NBA. Career averages of 6 points and 4 rebounds will forever summarize his underwhelming play, and few will remember a specific instance where he actually did something positive, let alone spectacular. Off the top of my head, I could only come up with a couple surprising plays myself… but a thorough, 31-page Youtube search helped me fill out the post. Ladies and gentlemen, the most dazzling of Darko…
#5: Dunk on Tim Duncan:
#4: Consecutive blocks on Blake Griffin:
#3: Driving dunk on DeSagana Diop:
#2: Tricky, possibly-unintentional post move vs Portland:
#1: What Joe Dumars must’ve envisioned on draft day ’03:
Ya know, having watched these videos in succession… you can kind of understand how Dumars and company became enamored with a teenage Darko’s apparent combination of size and talent. That’s not an excuse to go burn a number two pick on a guy about whom you “didn’t know half of the stuff you needed to know,” but…
I tried, Joe.
