Toronto Raptors coach Darko Rajaković may have flown under the radar for years but Kevin Durant and Devin Booker say he has a knack for connecting with players
Devin Booker remembers the day he found out Darko Rajaković was leaving the Phoenix Suns.
For most of the NBA world, it was just another unknown assistant coach moving on for a better job. After just one season with the Suns, Rajaković was heading to the Memphis Grizzlies to join Taylor Jenkins’ staff. It was a seemingly irrelevant tidbit of news. But not for Booker.
“I was like damn I wish we still had Darko,” Booker recalled Wednesday night in his first game against Rajaković since the 44-year-old Serbian was named head coach of the Toronto Raptors. “I loved having him around.”
You’d be forgiven if Rajaković’s name didn’t exactly jump out at you when the Raptors named him head coach earlier this year. He wasn’t a high-profile candidate like Ime Udoka or Steve Nash and he had no clear connection to Toronto the way former assistant coaches Adrian Griffin and Sergio Scariolo had. He was an off-the-radar hire.
“I know it’s said about players usually but (Rajaković is) underrated,” Booker said. “I’ve been a fan of him since we crossed paths when he was coaching with us. He has a high intelligent mind for the game.”
Booker isn’t the only one who feels that way about Rajaković. Kevin Durant shared the same kind of sentiment about Rajaković, having worked alongside the Raptors’ head coach during their time together in Oklahoma City.
“A detail-oriented coach who loved the development of his players,” Durant told AllRaptors. “Just a hard worker. Somebody who has been around the world coaching the game of basketball, been a part of the game of basketball. His enthusiasm shows through their team and how they play and he’s one of those guys who is going to get the most out of his team.”
Durant and Rajaković didn’t spend long together, just two seasons with the Thunder before Durant left for the Golden State Warriors. But what was clear to Durant then — and to this day — is Rajaković’s love for the game and the connection he builds with his players.
“He was always having constant dialogue with me and being honest and telling me what he sees out there on the floor and we built a nice relationship in his time in OKC,” Durant added. “I felt like he understood my perspective as a guy who can shoot whenever you want, who gets schemed by defenses, he understood my position and we talked through a lot of stuff during our years together. That dialogue is always good for the player and coach just to learn more and more about the game.”
That’s how Rajaković won the Raptors over this past summer and went from a little-known assistant coach in Memphis to the front man for this new era of Raptors basketball.
As he’ll admit, he’s not a perfect coach. He’s taken ownership of mistakes when it comes to occasional rotation blunders and in-game decision-making. But it’s the connections he’s fostered with his players and his developmental prowess that sets him apart from so many others in the league.
