Darko Milicic is in love.

He has spent the past few months living in New York, and, like so many others, has come to regard this city as like no other in the world.

It's an affair that soon will have to end, though. Shortly after 7 o'clock tonight, in what will come as a denouement to two months of expectation, the Pistons will draft Milicic with the second overall pick they received from Memphis to complete a 6-year-old trade. That means good-bye New York, hello Auburn Hills.

Milicic finished up one last day of pre-draft events Wednesday, starting with a trip to the southern tip of Manhattan to help ring open the New York Stock Exchange. A few hours later he was ensconced at the Westin Times Square Hotel to meet the media along with a score of other expected first-round picks. Only Milicic, No. 1 pick LeBron James and No. 3 pick Carmelo Anthony got their own individual news conferences, however.

Milicic, a native of Novi Sad, Montenegro, brought along interpreter Zak Ivkovic, but it was for comfort, not necessity. Milicic listened to every question in English, then promptly delivered his response in his native Serbian to Ivkovic, who then translated it into English during several classic examples of how a foreign answer that goes something like, "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah," becomes "yes."