But then, when they fired Vlade on my way back to Serbia, because there was an exit meeting and I’m talking with everyone, everything looks fine and I’m like, “I’m not even thinking about moving out.”
So now, I’m not saying I’m there because of Vlade, but at the exit meeting, you hear something and then boom, no one says nothing and the changes are going.
And I said already, “Something is going on.” But I got the call from the owner and he told me, “Hey, we still want to keep the team, but maybe we just need to change something, just so the players feel like a new staff, new beginning, blah, blah, blah.”
But then, I got traded. I was in Serbia. I was working out. I didn’t talk with anyone during the summer and I talked only with my guys from the Kings and my teammates. And I didn’t know what’s going to happen and the Kings traded me overnight. And from that point, I decide, when they wanted to trade me I was like, “OK, they don’t want me there.” Like, “Why I’m even thinking about it?”
So, I just wanted to leave and find the best situation for me and my family that I can go to the next level.
And I said, “The Hawks were the perfect fit for me.”
In the past, you’ve said that you were afraid of losing your competitiveness after losing a lot in Sacramento.
Yes.
Was that something that you did lose and then found this season again?
No, I feel like I didn’t lose it, but I just didn’t have enough credit for it because I wasn’t winning. Because if you’re making the winning plays in a losing team and you’re still losing, that’s not a winning place. Even if I think like, “OK, that play, it doesn’t have to be a scoring play”— there is a lot of things on the court that you can influence the game to win the game.
