NBA Basketball News: Darko Rajakovic has officially become the coach of the Toronto Raptors. In his introduction, the 44-year-old said it was special coaching the Canadian club.
“It’s a tremendous privilege to represent the Toronto Raptors, a championship organization,” Rajakovic said in his opening remarks.
“It’s been an incredible privilege to be part of such an incredible team. It must be a really exciting time. We’re people from the North!”
Darko Rajakovic will replace Nick Nurse, who was fired April 21 after Toronto went 41-41 and lost in the first round of the qualifying tournament.
Rajakovic said he felt a direct connection to Toronto’s front desk staff.
“The first time we started talking on a Zoom call, what I felt from day one was unity. Everyone in the organization, you could feel that everyone was together.”
Born and raised in Serbia, Rajakovic has been coaching since his youth. He coached in Spain before coming to the United States.
Rajakovic was a head coach for two seasons in the G League (later called the NBA Development League) before joining the Oklahoma City Thunder as an assistant ahead of the 2014–15 season. He spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant at Phoenix, then joined Memphis the following year.
During the introductory press conference, Rajakovic answered questions in Serbian from the Toronto-based Serbian-language broadcaster. The city has a large Serbian immigrant population.
Rajakovic said it “meant a lot” to become the second Serbian-born NBA coach after Igor Kokosov, who took charge of the Suns in 2018-19.
“It means a lot to the Serbian community here in Toronto. A lot of people have reached out to me. It means a lot to my family back home and to the whole basketball community in Serbia,” he continued. .
Article Tags: Toronto Raptors, Darko Rajakovic, NBA
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