Hoof_lat.jpg' alt='How To Fix Horses Cracked Hooves On A Horse' title='How To Fix Horses Cracked Hooves On A Horse' />NBA bust Darko Milicic finds success back home in Serbia.He no longer believes that, because of a combination of peer pressure and societal customs, he should lie about his dream.Darko was 1.Detroit Pistons drafted him.Before that, he lived in Serbia during the 1.Balkan region.He also lived through NATO bombings that decimated his city, forcing him and his parents and his sister to spend days on end in their basement, listening to the whooshes and thumps of explosions above.Once, during the war in Bosnia in the early 9.Serbian soldiers were killed that day.One of the names the newscaster read was Milorad Milicic.Darko, who wasnt even 1.The world is quick to label Darko Milicic an epic NBA bust, but here are 10 reasons he is an utter success.Why is Daddy on the TV he asked his mother.His mother didnt answer.She just started crying.So Darko cried too.But then about five minutes later, the newscaster said it was a mistake.Some of the names were wrong.Ill never forget what that felt like, Darko says.All of a sudden he was gone.All of a sudden he wasnt.Milorad came home.And, among other things, he taught Darko how to play basketball, showing him shooting techniques on a hoop just down the hill from the house.It wasnt because either father or son had a particular love for the game, though.It was mostly biology.My father taught me because there were people from the village who said, Youre tall why not try Darko shrugs.I wasnt the one that asked to play basketball.Still, basketball turned out to be something he was good at.And because of family encouragement, and the same kind of teenage inertia that makes kids stick with the tuba for six years even though theyre only sort of interested in music, Darko kept doing it.He moved to Hemofarm, a professional club in the city of Vrsac, when he was 1.Basketball became his purpose even if it wasnt his passion.By the time scouts started coming around, Darko saw the NBA as a way out of financial insecurity, of persistent tumult, of Serbia more than any kind of childhood fantasy coming true.He liked the game enough.Everyone he met was rooting for him to go.It was all right there in front of him.And who hasnt walked through a door simply because it was openThe problem is that wasnt the narrative we expect from foreign basketball players.We expect them to love the NBA, to have grown up watching it on choppy internet streams or satellite television, to cherish its players and aspire to its trappings.When Yao Ming came to the NBA from China, he made no secret of his longtime adoration of Arvydas Sabonis and Hakeem Olajuwon more recently, Kristaps Porzingis, a Latvian, made it clear that Dirk Nowitzki was his inspiration, and everyone nodded.So, as soon as Darko began to get some attention in the U.S., the expected questions began Who was your idol Who did you love to watch Kevin Garnett, Darko answered.He told everyone that Garnett, a tall power forward with a wingspan wider than a school bus, was his muse.He told local television stations he liked Garnett.He told USA Today he liked Garnett.He told ESPN he liked Garnett.Except he had barely seen Garnett play.I just sort of found him and decided hes the one, Darko says now.It seemed like the player I was supposed to like.Supposed to that was Old Darkos existence, wasnt it He was tall, so he played basketball.He was good, so he went to Hemofarm.He got noticed, so he went to America.He needed an idol, so he made one up.He followed the trail wherever it led.There was no hazy image of grandeur in his minds eye, no sweet moment of make believe lolling about in his brain.He was dreaming with the lights on.Now that basketball is over, though, it is different.Now, he does fantasize about a passion.Now, he does have a picture of something that makes him smile.Cherries. 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See, Darko got into commercial farming after basketball.Some athletes do real estate or clothing Darko did fruit.Dont be confused His farm is more Dole Plantation than Old Mac.Donald.He has 1.Dubai, Russia and countries in Africa.Cherries, though, are his vision.The financial return on cherries is tremendous, Darko says, and the market is wide open.When Darko talks about cherries, his eyes get wide.He gets passionate.He gets animated.I want to make these cherries, he says during the only moment we are together when he sounds wistful.I think its time.His typical evening routine no longer includes damaging his own home.Darko doesnt punch walls anymore.He punches heavy bags occasionally as a way to get exercise, and he once punched a horse in the face more on that later, but his days of regularly inflicting punishment on the walls around him are over.This is an important change.When Darko was playing in the NBA well, not exactly playing he would often return to his apartment after stewing on the bench for yet another game and channel his rage toward the typically thin, American Sheetrock walls.The worst was in Memphis.Darkos wife, Zorana, who was living with him then, calls that his crisis period.The team was losing.Darko was infuriated.And the walls in that apartment looked like cottage cheese, a mess of bubbly bumps and curds.The sequence was familiar He would come in, hammer on the walls and go to sleep.In most cities, he came to know the local contractors who could run over, throw some putty up and do a quick cover up job with whatever paint they had handy.You know you have exactly white, and then the other white, and then gray Darko says of his patchy walls.That was my house.Darko had always had outbursts.He called them going crazy.Mile Ilic, who met Darko when they were both teenagers, says sometimes Darko was just inexplicably petulant he would stop practicing or not want to do a drill or not think he should have to help clean up the gym and the coach would punish the rest of the team.At those moments, you simply start hating him because you have to suffer for it, Ilic says.It would last for five or 1.Cave Story Translation Download English Pc Otome .By the time Darko reached the NBA, however, his emotions were more complex.At first, he was just a teenager, an ocean away from home in a culture he didnt understand.For example, Darko would go home to shower after practices or games instead of staying in the locker room to clean up he didnt realize that in America, the players all showered together.So I had to teach Darko, says Chauncey Billups, who played in Detroit from 2.Thats what we do here.It wasnt long, though, before the navet melted to anger.Pistons coach Larry Brown didnt have a lot of interest in playing Darko because Detroit had received the No.Also, when Brown did play Darko, he wanted him to work near the rim instead of passing and shooting from the outside as Darko preferred.Darko quickly plunged into a near perpetual pout.There was wall punching.There was also drinking, and Darko began showing up to practice still tipsy after an overnight bender.I just wouldnt sleep, he says.It was classic high school behavior He couldnt be the star, so he decided to be the bad boy rebel.I dont have any regrets about how we treated Darko, Brown says now.I have regrets that he couldnt have been more mature and patient.The same thing happened in Orlando.And with Memphis, too, where Darko was so unhappy that he went off on a rant against the referees after an international game that was immortalized on You.Tube.
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