New Phoenix Suns bench boss Igor Kokoskov admits that he feels a bit stressed about being the first non-North American born-and-raised head coach in NBA history.
"I ... feel a little pressure," Kokoskov told The Jim Rome Show Tuesday. "In a way that ... (if) this project, this experiment doesn't really sustain, then maybe, you know, the American public is going to question, 'do we need a foreign coach?' just because we invented this game, we're the best in the world ... but on the flip side, I've been in this league for 18 years, I consider myself an NBA coach."
Kokoskov has spent the last three seasons as a Utah Jazz assistant, and split 15 years before that with the Clippers, Pistons, Magic, Cavaliers, and Suns. The 46-year-old Serbian is used to blazing trails - in 2000, he became the first non-American to be hired as a full-time assistant NBA coach by the Clippers.
"You can coach, or you cannot," Kokoskov said. "It's more of ... something the media is kind of playing with, and it's fun for fans maybe to have something different. Could be intriguing, could be something different, it's somebody who's got a strong accent when he talks."
Kokoskov's hiring has many predicting the Suns will select Luka Doncic with the No. 1 pick in this month's draft. Kokoskov coached Doncic and Slovenia to a first-place finish at last year's Eurobasket.
