Channing Frye on Goran Dragic: "Unfortunately for the Rockets, they didn't make the right decision."

I'm still fuming at the no dragon, but tbh, PBev wouldn't have gotten a chance to excell with Gogi here, so, there is that silver lining. We'd have the best backup PG, but he wouldn't have flourished (most likely, who knows) due to dragon going ham, but we would undoubtedly be closer to a chip. Still to late to get him back for that 1st they wanted earlier this year? No? Damn....

 

If we get a Superstar FA in 2015 or 2014,this topic will become mood

But yeah Morey made a mistake

 

Morey said on the radio that he did not predicted Dragic is going to be such good during that time, I bet Morey will keep Dragic if he would know Dragic is close to be a superstar on today.

 

Maybe. We would have had a chance to win it this year with Dragic.

 

May I "+1"?

+1

 

Agreed, but I would argue it wasn't a bad contract at the time given the team was bound to be a lottery team and he was the only PG on the market. And it probably wouldn't be a bad contract if we hadn't gotten Harden. But since Lin can't mesh well with the starting unit of this team, he's relegated to a sixth man role and he's a bad contract for that role.

I would also argue that Dragic's contract is way better than Lin's is bad. Lin, even with his current production in his reduced minutes, is not on that bad of a contract relative to other players contracts. But Dragic is just on an excellent contract given his production this year. May be the best contract in the league after Parsons

 

Keep in mind this is the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. Morey did not have Harden, Asik, Lin or Dwight on the roster and had no idea IF he could sign an all star at all.

Maximum flexibility was the #1 issue for Morey, and Dragic demanding a 4th year player option offered high risk on a completely unpredictable contract outcome. The money wasn't the issue.

For example, next year Dragic has a player option. Do you really think he would have opted in at $8M/year? Even if Dragic had a break out year this year, next year you would be facing Dragic going into FA and demanding an unknown amount of money.

4th year options are very high risk in term of moving contracts. If the player is bad, then they renew and you're stuck. If they're really good, then they opt out and you have no idea how much cap space you'll have.

Both outcomes are bad if you don't already have Foundational stars in terms of executing both trades and free agency moves.

And let's not forget that Dragic wasn't exactly lighting up the Suns last year. And we have no idea how effective Dragic would be with Harden controlling the ball possessions.

 

Seems to me like Dragic is the one who made the mistake. We didn't "let him go", he was a free agent. He could have had Lin money but he chose to take what was ultimately a smaller contract (assuming he declines his option, which I am sure he will) and been on a better team.

 

Dragic wouldn't have broken out behind Harden, Dwight, and maybe Parsons.

 

The jury's still out on whether it was a bad decision. If the Rockets take their cap space in 2015 and use it to land someone like Kevin Love, then letting Dragic walk will wind up being the right move. If they wind up with nothing, then it was a big mistake. (I assume that Dragic won't exercise his player option for 2015-16. If for some reason he does, then it was right for Morey to pass on resigning him.)

 

From the same article.

Would Dragic be playing the same way in Houston with the team we have?

 

I'm happy for Dragic. I liked him during his first stint in Phoenix. It took a while for him to get to this level and some of that is on the systems and coaching staffs he played under before as well as his own development track.

 

Goran would be a totally different player if he stayed in houston, and not for the better

 

I would've been happy if he would've made layups and open jumpers ...

 

Wah wah wah. Look, I loved Dragic as much as the next guy here (possibly even as much as Clutch) and but sometimes you just got to let it go. They whiffed on Dragic, so what? We have Harden and Howard. Granted we could have had all 3 but that was an unknown option at the time when Morey declined to give Dragic that extra year.

This is like saying "Man, we could have had Hakeem, Drexler, AND Jordan right now" during the championship run in the mid 90s. Sure that's the preferred outcome but the team made the most logical moves that were presented to them at that time.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> cheezzzeeee <a href="http://t.co/WzqS7DBb">pic.twitter.com/WzqS7DBb</a></p>&mdash; Goran Dragic (@Goran_Dragic) <a href="https://twitter.com/Goran_Dragic/statuses/197419162606370816">May 1, 2012</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

The logic was sound, but that doesn't mean it feels good to admit it.

Imagine if our guard rotation was Goran, Beverley, and Harden right now. We'd probably be in the hunt for the top seed.

 

Brilliant… thank you, Channing.