Orlando Magic Top 30: The Most Under-Appreciated Player in Orlando Magic History
28. Darko Milicic (2006-07)
This should be a familiar refrain for Orlando Magic fans.
A promising young player is drafted high with the weight of expectations heaped upon them on a franchise that is ready to compete for something real. That player is unable to reach those expectations immediately and patience grows thin.
That young player, perhaps not quite mature to handle all the pressure that comes with being on a competitive team while still developing their skills, perhaps makes some bad decisions or lashes out in the wrong way.
Eventually, they get shipped out for cents on the dollar. And the Magic are the team waiting to take the chance on them.
Like Markelle Fultz, the first overall pick of the 2017 NBA Draft, Darko Milicic struggled to fit in on an established team as a rookie and to catch up to the NBA game. Darko Milicic, the second overall pick in the vaunted 2003 draft, quickly got relegated to “Human Victory Cigar” on the eventual 2004 champion Detroit Pistons.
In fact, a player so many were convinced was the future of the NBA never really got a chance to play for the Pistons. He averaged only 5.8 minutes per game in 96 total games across three seasons.
That is not all the circumstance of having a championship team ahead of him. Larry Brown put him in the dog house and made life hard on the rookie. It was the wrong environment for a player like Milicic to establish his habits as a pro. He would admit as much when he told ESPN that basketball was not fun for him in Detroit.
Orlando Magic
Orlando represented a second chance for him. This was a young team, starting to make its push for the playoffs behind another young big in Dwight Howard, that could afford to give Darko Milicic his time on the court.
Whatever limited success Milicic had on the court, it came in a Magic uniform.
Across two seasons in Orlando, Milicic averaged 7.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game. He played in 23.1 minutes per game. He served as Howard’s primary backup, but he also shared the floor creating a devastating twin-tower lineup.
In those minutes, Milicic displayed a lot of what made him an intriguing prospect. He blocked shots at a high rate — his 5.9 percent block rate in his lone full season in Orlando in 2007 surpassed Howard that season — and could step out and hit jumpers at a consistent rate.
He was not a player who should have been drafted second overall. But as a reclamation project, Milicic was clearly a rotation-level player. Orlando had found a gem.
In the end, his ghosts caught up to him. Those bad habits — especially away from the court — made Orlando hesitant to sign him. The Memphis Grizzlies gave him a three-year, $21-million deal. Orlando opted to spend its money that offseason on Rashard Lewis. And Milicic’s career petered out.
For a moment though, it looked like Milicic would be more than the butt of a few draft jokes. He looked like he was going to make something out of his career in Orlando.