https://youtu.be/Hb4Hu9pcyA0
Nemanja Bjelica was just pulling on his winter coat, getting ready to leave the arena after a game which had been a personal success for him but a letdown for his team, when his phone rang. He looked at the screen to see who it was and immediately recognized the name. Shrugging off his coat and sitting back down in his locker, he answered it. “Hey man,” he said in his native Serbian, feeling like he knew exactly where this conversation was going to go.
“The Serbian Superteam in Sacramento can still happen,” came Bogdan Bogdanovic’s voice from the other end of the call. “The dream is not dead!”
Nemanja rolled his eyes. He loved his Serbian compatriot and had happily shared the court with him for several years, but the man’s obsession with forming a superteam of Serbian players was rather tiresome. “Oh, it’s dead alright. Give it up, man.”
The tone of indignance in Bogdan’s response could be heard crystal clear even with the large physical gap between them. “They’re giving you minutes again! Walton’s finally woken up to the unstoppable power of the Serb!”
Nemanja chuckled. “Nah, they’re just showcasing me for a trade.” He was glad that he was the only one left in the locker room. He could speak the truth without having to be discreet about it. “Besides, wouldn’t it have been easier to form the Serbian Superteam in Sacramento if you had, you know, just re-signed with Sacramento?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “That decision was made for…business reasons.”
“What ‘business reason’ could possibly trump the notion of forming a trio of Serbian players in Sacramento that would win multiple championships?”
“I’m working on it, alright?” Bogdan snapped. “But there’s a moratorium period for newly-signed free agents where I can’t be traded for a certain amount of time. Stupid Americans and their meddling rules on transactions. Once it is possible under the CBA, I will demand a trade back to Sacramento, don’t worry.”
“Bogdan, I know you speak from your heart when you say these things, but I speak from my brain when I tell you, your plans for the SSS have never made much sense, and they make even less sense now.”
Bogdan ignored Nemanja’s honest appraisal of the SSS concept. “Did you tell Vlade to trade for Jokic yet? That’s the crucial part, and I can’t do it because I’m not there anymore.”
Nemanja put his head in his hand and tried not to audibly sigh. How could Bogdan not know? “Vlade’s not here anymore either.”
“That poses a problem,” Bogdan replied after a pause. “Having a true Serb occupying an upper position in the Kings’ power structure was vital to our designs. But it’s not an insurmountable problem. Even dumb Americans can be made to recognize the championship-winning potential that a core of three Serbian players would provide, as long as you are aggressive in suggesting the idea to them.”
“Maybe I could get traded to Atlanta and form a Serbian Superteam there,” Nemanja suggested jokingly, before realizing that Bogdan had no concept of humor when it came to his pet idea.
“Do not do that,” Bogdan warned. “These fools are all in on Trae. The SSS and Trae cannot coexist because the true power of the SSS lies in its playmaking ability, which Trae would interfere with.”
“Okay, bad idea, sorry,” Nemanja replied quickly. “Anyway, I gotta go, Bogdan, these media guys are outside waiting to interview me.” This was a lie. All his media obligations had been completed some time ago. “Listen, try to move on from the Serbian Superteam in Sacramento idea. Sometimes things just don’t work out.”
“HOW COULD YOU TELL ME T-” Bogdan began to yell before Nemanja abruptly ended the call, shaking his head as he did so. He wanted to see Serbs succeed in the NBA as much as the next person, but there were actionable ways of achieving that success. Forming a dream team of Serbs was not one of those ways, and he hoped that one day he would make Bogdan understand that.