A Merciful End for Darko

It's almost mercifully that the Darko Milicic era in the NBA is coming to a close.

It was often too painful to watch.

Milicic, now a seldom-used reserve center for the New York Knicks, came into the league with Detroit as the No. 2 pick of the 2003 Draft, a wide-eyed, 18-year-old youngster from Serbia-Montenegro.

Selected immediately after LeBron James, and ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade, Milicic was relatively unknown but supposedly filled with incredible promise as a diamond in the rough.

The roughness never left. The promise never was fulfilled. The desire to play never arrived.

After seven seasons with four teams, all marked by disappointment and criticism for his lack of passion, Milicic will leave quietly without fanfare when this season ends.

Milicic told Chris Tomasson of FanHouse last month that he was strongly leaning toward playing next season in Europe, and Wednesday he confirmed to the New York Post that this season will be his last in the NBA.

"It's 100 percent certain. I have to be real, and not lie. I'm not going to get it done in the NBA. I'm not going to get another opportunity, and there's nothing wrong with going back to Europe.''
- Darko Milicic"It's 100 percent certain. I have to be real, and not lie. I'm not going to get it done in the NBA,'' he told the Post. "I'm not going to get another opportunity, and there's nothing wrong with going back to Europe.''

Talented players wash out the league often, but it's rare for a draft pick so high, an athlete with such potential, to fail so badly. If he had been a late first-round or second-round pick, no one would have noticed.

But because of where he was picked -- and who he was picked in front of -- he will go down in history as one of the NBA's all-time busts, and forever a stain on the drafting resume of Pistons general manager Joe Dumars.

Although he always had the physical skills, he never developed the mental makeup that it took to play in the NBA. For a 7-footer, he could shoot, pass, catch the ball and run well, which was why he was drafted by the Pistons originally.

Yet he never loved the game, never played with the passion it required. He often looked like he wanted basketball to be a recreational pursuit. And that doesn't work in this league.

He has played 345 games in seven seasons, averaging 5.4 points and 4 rebounds. With the Knicks this season, he has played in only eight games and averaged 2 points and 2.3 rebounds. His best season came in Orlando (2006-07 ) when he averaged 8 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks as the backup to Dwight Howard.

Among players taken either first or second in the NBA Draft in the last 30 years, only Len Bias (1986, who died of a drug overdose) and Jay Williams (2002, whose career ended with a crippling injury) accomplished less.

He is making $7.5 million this season, the final year of a free agent contract he signed with Memphis, who thought he had the potential to be an NBA starting center when they signed him as a free agent in 2007. It's the same potential that Orlando saw when they traded for him early in 2006.

It was in Detroit, where he hardly played for the first 2 ½ years of his career, that he was first labeled a bust, a talented athlete who really didn't care about succeeding in the NBA, who wanted to play just for fun.

It wasn't his fault he was picked No. 2 in the draft. It was the fault of the Pistons and everyone else who followed without really knowing what they were getting.

For him, the end of his NBA career will be a welcome relief, and the end of the ridicule that has followed him.