Goran Dragic on if the Rockets ever had a chance to keep him

I wanna know too!

 

Dragic
Harden
Parsons
Tjones
Howard

dammm.....

 

This board was down on Dragic because most only saw their team record but not Suns fans. He was their only bright spark and they were excited about his future especially the second half.

 

He got 7.5 million annually in Phoenix and will assuredly opt out of the fourth year, which comes out to 22.5m. Here he could have had 25m, the same as Lin.

It was his mistake, not ours.

Please save your tired whining about Lin and how he is the victim of everything.

 

I don't think any sports analysis would argue that lineup is a true contender alone.

If we had that plus a halfway decent bench i would bet 1000 bucks on us getting to the conference finals.

 

I am not a huge fan of Morey, I think he sometimes tries to be too smart.

But it is laughable to see all those Dragic fans pointing fingers at him and trying to revise history:

1. Rox was in rebuilding mode after that EPIC collapse of playoff run, with BOTH Lowry and Dragic on the team.

2. 2011-2012 Dragic was a 12/5 player who had 20ish starting experience. Solid but not great.

3. In his free agency, Dragic wanted not only a 4 years deal, but the last year as a player option. Very rare for a player who was, at the time, not a star by any means and only had limited starting experience. Basically you were asking Morey to bank on him as one of the centerpiece of the Rox franchise for the next four years and treat him as the building block. Morey didn't want to do it. I don't fault him for one bit because it was too much to commit to a guy who only started 20+ games and had 12/5 for the season.

4. Then Lin was available. A guy who just had that "Linsanity" season, and had the marketability which Dragic could ever dream of. At the time, their stats were also pretty comparable and they both showed equally promising potential. Morey signed Lin (who was two years younger) for three years. Not only the contract was one year less than Dragic's, but also 8M less in terms of total money. And now you are saying it was not a good deal back then? Are you kidding me? If Harden didn't accidentally fall on Rox lap, do you dare to bet that Dragic led Rox would have had a much different outcome than a Lin-led team and made the playoffs in 2013?

Mind you, Dragic's was only a 14/7 player last season even though he was the main ball handler for the Suns. Only this year, after Sun hired a young bright coach, who should be COY, and adopted a fast pace run and gun style that was a perfect fit for Dragic and him being the No.1 option, then he flourished. Not try to sound too confident but I can bet you anything that if Lin plays for a mediocre to bad team and be the No.1 option, he will post similar stat. Do you Dragic fans want to bet against me?

 

Lineup would be awesome if the game was played with two basketballs at a time.

 

We are drooling over Dragic and fantasizing how he would be like on our team. But the reality is we would never know how well he could mesh with our roster.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

 

Prior to the start of this season, I thought Jeremy Lin was a little better than Dragic.... But although Lin has made small improvements to his game, Dragic has taken his game to a whole new level.... Dragic is now a borderline All-Star.

The one aspect of Dragic that I'm leery about is his vast improvement in sheer strength.... He's bulked up as much as any player in the league this past offseason... I used to think of him as a "left handed Ricky Rubio", a nice finesse player. But at times, he now looks like "Harden Lite", in his new explosiveness and power driving to the basket. The concern here is there will be suspicion that he might be on the juice......

 

It's not just the team's record. He was nowhere near his performance level when he was with the Rockets the season before and this season.

 

Everytime I see a reference to how good Dragic is or how he is the uber PG, I get a little taste of how LOF-haters must feel.

 

Dragic was 15/7.5 player on a horribly constructed team that was supposed to have Beasley as their main offensive threat. Beasley!!! Hunter, our interim coach for the 2nd half of the season looked like this on most nights while trying to comprehend the conundrum that is Michael Beasley.


And under him Goran put up 16.1 and 9.5 after the AS break. I’d say those are exceptional numbers on that team, something I doubt many (if any) PGs could do with those Suns who had no spacing, pace or significant perimeter shooters. There’s not a player in this league that wouldn’t look bad or a lot worse on last years Suns. Believe me, as I’ve suffered through all 82 games last season.

Goran’s been showing his star potential for years now. After he single handedly took out the Spurs in 2010 WCSF game 3, he again showed what he can do with an 8 pts in 1 min performance against the Lakers in WCF. Playoff performances!

Next (11-12) season our former GM dismantled the bench unit that was generally considered to be one of the best in the league and brought in guys like Turkoglu and Childress, sheeeesh! Again, creating a situation where everybody on that bench unit looked horrid. The former GM than decided to rectify that by trading Goran in what is probably the worst trade in recent Suns history. He currently doesn’t have a job within the league in any capacity and I doubt he ever will.

After that you guys know how the story goes. Goran waited for his chance and fully took advantage of it when it came, posting better numbers during his starter run than Lin did during his. Coincidentally when he got his chance with you already at the end of 10-11 season he almost averaged a triple double (16.7/8.3/10.3) in the last three games, when he started instead of Lowry for the first time.

Btw. talking about playing in the right position and getting screens set. On ESPN PER rankings they still rank Goran as an SG and he’s in the 1st spot with a significant lead over Harden. He was putting up over 18 pts and 6 ass playing SG with Bled who needed the ball in his hands just as much as Harden does if not much more. He’s in the 3rd spot amongst PGs behind Curry and CP3.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/statistics/_/position/sg

His one on one performance vs. Hibbert prompted Lowe to tweet this:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Not sure I've seen anyone in two seasons take the ball as fearlessly at Hibbert as Dragic did tonight. Phoenix, man. What a story.</p>&mdash; Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/429090288926482432">January 31, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I believe he’s a part of the new breed of elite combo guards that came into prominence with Westbrook, who is probably the only guy who could still be considered a better combo guard than Gogi. We’ll see if that remains so after he comes back.

Goran has been indisputably proving his star potential for years now. I believe that he will be widely considered a better basketball player than Harden in 5 years, barring any unforeseen circumstances of course. He already is amongst people who regularly watch Suns games. At least a vast majority of us. I can completely understand a different view from Rockets fans, but you have to be honest and admit that this point is now at least up for discussion.

The only area where Goran is still significantly lagging behind Harden is his immense capacity and talent for self promotion and marketing of “the Beard”.

On the other hand there’s no doubt that with Goran’s combo ability where he almost seamlessly switches from SG to PG and plays both with the same ferocity and efficiency (.613 TS%), Rockets would probably be a serious contender right now. Not to mention his D game where he got posted up by opposite SGs only 16 times through the whole season and only gave up 6 pts in low post despite his size disadvantage. Booyah!!!

 

^ now we have a Suns fan going full r****d on Cf

You think Dragic will be widely considered better than Harden when he's 31?

We all watched Dragic while he was while he was here, what made him great wasn't exactly superstar talent, but more like his high motor and overall aggressiveness. I still maintain Rockets should've signed him because he gave his heart out here. But in no universe does his offensive ability compare to harden and never will be.

 

Watch a Suns game before you make any such judgements, will ya? And yes, as I've said before, I believe he will be considered a better player at 31 than Harden will at 29. Look at their numbers now douche!

 

The Rockets are more and more like the Warriors, whomever they traded away seems always became a better player.

 

implying i don't. I was the one of biggest fan of Dragic while he was here, I probably watched as many Suns games last season as Rockets games. Albeit I haven't seen as many this year, but I've watched enough because I still really like Dragic.

Dragic's style hasn't changed since his own version of "linsanity" here so don't act like people don't know who Dragic is. He is still the most effective in a high paced fast break offense in Phoenix as he was here, and he keeps it really aggressive and smart off Pick and Rolls in Phoenix as he did here. But once the pace bogs down and he has to score off his own ability without a defensive system his effectiveness goes way down compared to real super stars. He simply doesn't have the athleticism and quickness that breaks down the defense. He tends then to over dribble and not do anything.

Just watch the end of the game vs. the Rockets this year, he simply couldn't break down the defense in crutch time to get baskets, so he gets frustrated and wastes possessions. something Harden can sometimes do, and something actual superstars like Lebron and Durant
do on fairly regular basis.

My point is, good luck going anywhere with the team with Dragic as your first option, I don't see at his age a sudden break through in natural talent that can bring him to the next level. I wish I can have him back, but only third fiddle behind Harden and Howard.

 

Those damned nba coaches, not watching suns games

 

Even though you're claiming you've watched Suns games before this tells me the opposite. Goran is arguably one of the faster guards and with his combination of strength (oposing SGs haven't been able to post him up this season) and jumping ability (39 inch vertical leap) is definetly amongst the more athletic guards in the league.

He can score in such a variety of ways. He also improved his right hand so he seems to be going right just as much as left this year.

[youtube]1s2YJvXbnU4[/youtube]

 

If Goran Dragic could make a big jump at age 27, what makes you think Harden wouldn't make the same jump?

Even if we assume Dragic is a better player than Harden (and I am not saying he is), anyone who is remotely objective would argue Harden is not far behind. So if Harden does make the same jump that Dragic has, then it's not really close.

What you are basically doing is assuming Harden, who is 3 years younger than Dragic, will develop at the same or slower pace than Dragic.

 

I've got no issue with that comment, though Harden is 2,5 years younger and this is his 5th season in the league and Goran's 6th. He also got his chance to prove himself much sooner in his development than Goran did. My main issue was with being called a "r****d" for daring to say Goran's currently playing better than Harden, though stats arguably confirm this fact.

Based on everything I've seen so far I really don't think that it's that much of a stretch to claim Goran will be a better and more complete player in 5 years (31) than Harden (29) will.