Grief-stricken Warriors hope to honor Dejan Milojević in ‘Deki’ fashion – NBC

SAN FRANCISCO – The tears have dried among the Warriors, but the images are indelible and haunting. Rarely is death welcome, but it’s utterly chilling when you see it suddenly steal a young man so energetic and popular.

The organization spent last Tuesday night praying and pleading in vain for a miracle that could spare Dejan Milojević.

The cherished assistant coach died of cardiac arrest Wednesday at University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City. “Deki,” as everyone called him, was 46.

Five days passed without activity from the Warriors. Recognizing the trauma inflicted upon the team, the NBA postponed Golden State’s next two games. There were no practices, and no desire.

It wasn’t until Monday morning that coach Steve Kerr tried to restore a sense of normalcy and, even then, there was Deki. Before getting onto the court, the team watched video of thousands of fans that gathered to celebrate his life before a basketball game in Serbia, his homeland, where he had been a star player.

“We got better sense of just what Deki meant to his countrymen,” Kerr said. “And, of course, how much he meant to us and to (wife and children) Natasa, Masa and Nikola. It’s been just a devastating week.”

The Warriors took an hour after the video to “process the emotion of what we watched,” per Kerr. Only then, did it feel somewhat proper to begin practice.

Six days after seeing Milojević lose consciousness and five days after he was pronounced dead, they remain in deep mourning. How can they not be?

“It’s a pretty terrible thing to witness,” Kerr said.

Only 12 hours earlier, much of the team’s traveling party was enjoying dinner when, suddenly, Deki was in distress. There was no defibrillator at the restaurant, nor at the business next door. Lifesaving measures could not bring him back.

“Everybody on our team and everybody in our organization is traumatized,” Kerr said. “Part of life it that you experience loss. Everyone is going to experience loss at some point in their life. But it doesn’t often happen in front of you. And it doesn’t often happen to someone with kids. And it doesn’t happen often where it’s someone who is so beloved worldwide.

“So, everything that’s happened over the last five days has been just jarring. Just incredibly emotional, powerful, and more than anything, heartbreaking.”

Milojević was assigned to coach Golden State’s big men, so no one on the roster spent more time with him than Kevon Looney. From the time Deki was hired in the summer of 2021 until last week, the two would break from practice for one-on-one drills. They could be seen before games sitting next to each other on the bench studying video.

Though Looney was not at the dinner to see his coach lose his life, the last six days have been particularly difficult.

“The first couple days it was more of a shock than anything,” Looney said. “You hear there was an emergency, and you don’t know…