Late Dejan Milojevic’s ‘Brate’ spirit lives on with Warriors, new documentary

SAN FRANCISCO – An insurmountable loss always will surround the Warriors that can’t be seen on a scoreboard and in the record books. The sudden, tragic death of assistant coach Dejan Milojevic from a heart attack at a team dinner in Salt Lake City almost two years ago, in January of 2024, is a scene, sound and feeling that the nearly 40 members of the Warriors in attendance can never escape.The despair that forever will be with them is a constant cue to live by the enthusiasm that Milojevic displayed every single day. The global impact he made on basketball and beyond was remembered on the big screen in Chicago after the Warriors’ win against the Bulls on Dec. 7, and soon will be by many more. After a start to the season where the schedule rarely allowed breaks, everything finally aligned perfectly for the Warriors. They didn’t have a game for five days after beating the Bulls, giving players two full days off before two days of practice that set them up for their first game against the Minnesota Timberwolves since the Western Conference semifinals.The timing also allowed a large group of the Warriors coaching staff to fill into a bus to watch the US premiere of “BRATE,” a Serbian documentary on the life and legacy of Milojevic, shown on the final day at the Chicago Serbian Film Festival. “I think the overall message is the approach to life and how important it is to connect with people around you. That was Deki’s magic,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said to NBC Sports Bay Area about the documentary after getting back home. “He connected with everybody. He had this incredible spirit and energy and zest for life. All you had to do was be around him and you felt that. And then you realize how powerful that is and how important it is for your group, your family, your team, your community.“He was a Serbian hero. So the emotion and the joy that he brought to his community, his country and then of course to our team was really powerful. And it’s a great reminder of how we all need to have that perspective and really seek out joy in our lives.”Months after Milojevic’s death, his son, Nikola, received a call from people at Videostroj, a production company that works out of Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia, about their idea of a documentary film on his father with the hopes of getting his allowance. Nikola signed off right away. He only had one request: Don’t make this a sob story. Everybody knows the ending is sad. His son knew best, though, that’s not how Deki lived his life. “The first day that they came to me and gave me the idea of the movie, I just told them, ‘Please don’t make an empathetic, sad movie.’ That’s the only thing I didn’t want, because my father wouldn’t want it to be like that,” Nikola says. “He was always happy. He was a positive guy. Pretty much the whole movie is happy. “It’s exciting, it’s a great story. Just at the end, of course, it’s sad. But I tried to make it as happy as possible.” Nikola was a 6-foot-5 wing playing his junior year at Hawaii Pacific University when his dad died during the season. He remained with family and went back home to Serbia, where in the summer he joined Mega Superbet’s coaching staff as an assistant, which is the same team his father was beloved as head coach for when they were only known as Mega Basket. Milojevic won Mega Basket its first-ever Serbian Cup in the 2015-16 season, and also made the Adriatic League Finals for the first time the same year. That coincided with one season after Nikola Jokic won the Adriatic League MVP under Milojevic, an honor his coach took him three straight years from 2004 through 2006. His coaching career was but a second act as an icon who already earned his legendary stripes as a player. If the younger Milojevic wasn’t on the court or at the facilities learning back home in Serbia as a first-time coach, he was on set for the movie. Nikola became extremely involved and is the first person you see in the film’s official trailer. He, in a way, became the main character. The telling of his father’s documentary is full of footage that peels the curtains to all facets of his life. And Nikola is the one who takes you through the journey from start to finish while bringing people in for interviews who can best tell the life that Deki lived. “It’s been a lot, but I really wanted to make the movie as good as possible,” Nikola said. Kerr found out about the movie from Nikola last season when he asked if he could come to San Francisco to interview him, Steph Curry and Draymond Green for it. All the coaches took Nikola out to dinner before, later in the week, he sat down on the ninth floor of Chase Center to interview Kerr, Curry, Green and other members of the Warriors. “You know, it was pretty emotional just going right back there to it,” Kerr said. View this post on Instagram The Slavic word “Brate” translates in English to “brother,” an indicator of closeness that also can be used in the laid-back sense of “dude.” The term still is seen across Kerr’s chest and others. No amount of time can slow it down from resonating for anybody who knew the man known as Deki. Somehow in his own way, Deki made each person who crossed his path feel that word when he was around. Kerr, Curry, Green and each avenue of the Warriors felt it, as did the abundance of European players and coaches who would come to Golden State’s home court and still see him like the God he is overseas. Milojevic joined the Warriors as an assistant coach in August of 2021, winning a championship in his first season in the NBA. Milojevic’s brate philosophy never was going to leave the Warriors. In September, a little more than four years after Deki first joined the Warriors and slightly over a year and a half after his passing, Nikola, now 24 years old, was announced as being hired by the team in a video coordinator, player development role, where he still is used on the court to help in drills and scrimmages. “It’s been a lot leaving home and being homesick here, but it’s the best possible environment I can be outside of home,” he says. There never was a conversation of coaching between father and son when it came to Deki and Nikola. What Nikola does know is how much his dad appreciated smart basketball. Players who can fit into a system, who bring positivity with high energy and a high motor. He never taught him how to play isolation basketball, opting to teach him the greatness of Jokic. The coach who steers the Warriors’ ship has the same values. He also went through the same kind of loss Nikola is navigating. Kerr’s father, Malcolm, was assassinated at the American University of Beirut on Jan. 18, 1984, one day off being exactly 40 years before Milojevic’s death. Malcolm Kerr was only 52 at the time of his death, and Dejan Milojevic was even younger at 46. Steve was an 18-year-old freshman, suddenly without a father. Nikola was a 22-year-old junior. “Steve is probably one of the best persons I’ve met in my life,” Nikola says. “It’s incredible to me. Someone that’s that successful, has nine championships, and he’s so normal. You can talk to him like any other guy on the street. He understands everyone. He cares about everyone and their family. He’s a family guy. It’s amazing to learn from him. And not just basketball. Like learning from him how to pretty much run the franchise. To have that many people involved and keep a positive environment, it’s hard to keep a positive environment when you have 60, 70 people here every day. “You can learn a ton of stuff from him. A ton of stuff. Basketball, it’s cool and all that. Outside of basketball, you can learn from him so much.” Every day Kerr sees his late friend and former assistant coach’s son is a day he looks forward to, he says. The feeling is shared. “Of course,” Nikola says. “That dude is amazing. I love him.” Intelligence and experience are a fraction of the value the late Milojevic added to Kerr’s coaching staff. His soul is the irreplaceable void. The spirit and energy. The kind of connection that came naturally to him is something Kerr finds beauty in. There was a sense of light and joy around him all the time, prompting Kerr to tell a new Deki story that now is one of his favorites. “One of our front office members, John Phelps, told me a great story the other night at dinner,” Kerr began. “We were talking about Deki and he said, ‘Deki had one of my favorite lines of all time.’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘We were going over a prospect for the draft and somebody on the staff said, ‘This guy is going to know how to play because his father was a coach.’ Deki raised his hand and said, ‘What if his dad was a bad coach?’ “The whole room burst out laughing. Of course, he said that was a gleam in his eye, and it was just typical Deki. There’s humor, there’s a wisecrack and then oh yeah, there’s a hint of wisdom. That was Deki. He was always laughing, always making cracks and it’s what we loved about him.” Serbians jokingly call Chicago their second capital outside of Belgrade. Whereas Belgrade is the largest city in Serbia with a population that exceeds one million, there are estimated to be more than 300,000 Serbians in Chicago. Nikola still wasn’t prepared to see such a large number of Serbians in one place outside of the country when he, Kerr and the Warriors coaching staff, as well as physical therapists Long Lam and Nadine Terlicher, arrived at the premiere. As the AMC theater was emptying, the Warriors, and even Bulls center Nikola Vucevic, were part of a group that was getting a private screening of the documentary. After spending so many hours and days on set, Nikola finally saw the finished product. “Watching it to the end with everything together, it’s really emotional,” he said. “It was really powerful,” Kerr said. “Uplifting but sad, and a lot of emotion.” View this post on Instagram Videostroj traveled to 17 different locations for 30 scenes, using more than 80 people from Deki’s life – from family members to old teammates and coaches, players he coached and coaches who shared a bench alongside him. There are highlights of him playing and coaching, and history lessons throughout. Those scenes don’t compare to specific moments for Kerr. Seeing Deki as a dad hit Kerr, a father and proud grandfather himself, the hardest. “All the scenes with Deki and his kids when Nikola and Masha were young. Home movies. Those were tough to watch,” Kerr says.His voice cracks. He looks down, scratches his head and feels emotions that let out a cracked tone. “Natasha, his wife, speaking about Deki posthumously – it was very emotional,” Kerr continues. “And then there’s some scenes of him with all his teammates when he was a player and a coach. I saw a lot of footage and learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about him.”Reliving childhood moments of his parents and sister was a blend of feelings Nikola couldn’t prepare himself for. Not on set. Not in his mind. Not until seeing them with the team who has made him family, celebrated by his community for the person he’ll always love most.“Fun and a little bit of everything. Mixed emotions. Like everything in one package,” Nikola says.Tears are inevitable, knowing how Milojevic’s story ended. Sadness shouldn’t be masked but embraced. Not as a controlling force that doesn’t allow what he stood for. The hurt is there as a reminder to feel, to cherish the moments, months and years we’re given. They aren’t a guarantee. Nikola had his fingerprints on telling the story his dad would want to be told and the message he would want to get across. The one that is rooted in positivity and filled with laughter. To live every day to its fullest as Deki did. “You can learn how to look at life, how to seize the day, because life is short,” Nikola says. “And you get to learn a little bit of the history of Serbia and Yugoslavia back then and the history all together. “But most importantly, seize the day.”How Milojevic was able to bring light to life’s darkness from Serbia, across Europe and all the way to San Francisco and countless corners of the world is being seen on the big screen with a larger audience to come in 2026. It’s clear what he’d want before and after watching. Be somebody’s brate today.Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Late Dejan Milojevic’s ‘Brate’ spirit lives on with Warriors, new documentary

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