LOS ANGELES – The NBA world was shocked to hear the news that Golden State Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojevic died of a heart attack on Wednesday.
At the time of Milojevic’s death, the Warriors were in Salt Lake City and were preparing to play the Utah Jazz. The NBA postponed that game.
“It’s a sobering situation,” Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “You get caught up in this basketball world, this NBA world, and you tend to forget about life – natural life. That’s an unbelievable loss.”
The death of Milojevic affects the Mavericks, who were slated to leave Los Angeles on Thursday and fly to San Francisco, where they are scheduled to play the Warriors on Friday. But the Mavs won’t know their plans until Thursday – until they hear form the NBA.
“We’re going to know tomorrow if we’re playing or not – tomorrow morning, I think,” coach Jason Kidd said. “We’ll go home (Thursday) if we’re not playing. There’s no need to fly to San Francisco.”
After the originally scheduled game against the Warriors, the Mavs’ next game is Monday in Dallas against the Boston Celtics. Meanwhile, the Warriors’ scheduled next game after the contest against the Mavs is Wednesday at home against the Atlanta Hawks.
But Kidd believes the Warriors-Jazz game will be played before the Mavs match up with the Warriors.
“We would have to move on and figure out and re-schedule that (Warriors’) game somewhere in the schedule,” Kidd said. “We would wait for Golden State to play, because they’ve still got to play Utah.”
After a medical emergency during a private team dinner, Milojevic was hospitalized Tuesday night. He was 46 years old.
“Our prayers and condolences go out to their coaching staff, their organization, their team,” Ham said. “It’s a very unfortunate situation.
“I’ve engaged (Milojevic) many times and it’s always been smiles, laughs, well wishes. It’s heart breaking.”
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