FUN WITH GOOGLE TRANSLATE!

Toni Kukoc is on Croatia’s basketball Mount Rushmore. The former Sixer – and, uh, three-time NBA champion – currently works as a Special Advisor to the Chicago Bulls, and he spoke to TPortal.hr (whatever the hell that is) about what he’s seen from Dario this year (via r/Sixers):

“Dario in the last month really play great, he found his place in the team and how I see the All-Star weekend, when they officially lost center Joel Embiid, a lot of play on it. Especially me Saric surprised how well it plays on the position quadruplets and I think that’s his more natural position than it triples or low wings. I’m at the two positions most commonly played in the NBA, so to me it was easier to say, shoot and dribble penetrate slower and senior players. In short, in Saric teammates have a lot of trust in relation to the start of the season now everyone see that is a complete player who knows how to recognize situations in the attack, he can add a scoring opportunity and more importantly great in defense.”

A rough translation to say the least. From what I can gather, Kukoc is saying he’s surprised at how well Dario is playing against fours, even though it’s more of his natural position than one of the wing spots. Where Kukoc found it easier to drive against slower and older players, due to his size and ballhandling ability, Dario is a “complete player who knows how to recognize situations in the attack” (a rare clear translation). Despite once winning the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award, Kukoc sees Saric accomplishing something neither he or the great Drazen Petrovic was able to do:

“I am convinced that will be the first Croat who was elected to the All-Star team. Already this season sees the great improvement in their game, they won some play-off team and now have to make a step forward. Saric especially! That’s me in the Bulls have Michael Carter-Williams is a player of Philadelphia a few years ago received an award for best rookie in the NBA, and we are still looking and just not playing at the level where it would be, so this award Saric, if he gets it, should be an incentive to become even better and to correct some of its shortcomings in the game, and not to think about that now knows everything about basketball.”

I can sense the heavy MCW shade even through the translation. I knew I still loved Toni Kukoc.