Goran Dragic on the Suns:

[Wildlinger]

After returning home in may, Dragic gave a few interviews to different Slovenian media outlets. He spoke about this past season and the trade that sent him to Miami. Here are a few of his answers pertaining to the trade and the Suns.

Question: You were dissatisfied with the situation in Phoenix and demanded a trade. Was it really that bad?

Dragic:

"Day before the trade I sat down with the coach and GM and told them that I want to leave. They (the front office) kept making empty promises. In fact my only bad experience was with the GM Ryan McDonough. My relationship with the owner Robert Sarver was good. I told him my views on the matter, thanked him for everything he’s done for me and told him that I want to help the Suns with a trade. I had no intentions of signing another contract with Phoenix, so I thought a trade might be the best option for both sides. That way they could at least get something for me. I told him (Sarver) Miami was my preferred destination and he was the main reason I ended up there. I’m very grateful for that. I don’t want to keep talking about the trade though. This story is finished and I said the same in the US. If they (the Suns) want to continue this it’s fine with me, but I’m done."

Q: What bothered you the most in Phoenix?

D:

"They called me before the start of the season and told me that Isaiah Thomas is the newest member of the Suns. They assured me that my role on the team wouldn’t change. That turned out not to be true. When the season started I played mostly as an off guard and sometimes I had to defend wings as well. I told them that I don’t feel comfortable doing that, since I just wrapped up an All NBA season playing as a point guard. I didn’t feel comfortable changing positions and playing off ball, while defending guys who were much bigger than me. That’s not my game. They kept reassuring me that Thomas will get traded for a better (fitting) player. Since the situation remained the same for 4-5 months, I started feeling like they were making a fool out of me. I told my agent as much and demanded a trade."

In another interview for a Slovenian daily newspaper Dragic also mentioned that he had to be firm in his trade demands because he didn’t want to end up

“somewhere like Milwaukee”

Considering McDonough was supposedly (according to Marc Stein) trying to trade Dragic to the Bucks even before his trade request, his fear was quite understandable. Dragic reiterated that the GM and the president of Phoenix (Babby) were making promises about bringing in a

“good wing player”

Dragic continued:

“but they didn’t do that. So at times I had to play on the wing and defend much bigger players.”

It seems clear that the front office was aware of Dragic’s misgivings about the whole “guard situation" since the start of the season. Dragic specifically mentioned that this season was the main problem and he liked playing with Bledsoe and sharing the ball during the 2013/14 season. Dragic clearly didn’t trust the front office to do what they “promised” him they will, i.e. trade Thomas and bring in a wing player. He felt disrespected and underappreciated after a remarkable season when he often played injured. He was honest about his feelings when he said “I don’t trust them anymore”. He didn’t and that appears to be the main reason for his trade request, which certainly wasn’t as abrupt as it may have appeared at first.

You can blame Dragic for losing patience and not making a (huge) sacrifice during his contract year, but I don’t think there are many players in the league who would, certainly not All NBA or All Star caliber players. In the end Dragic just didn’t trust the Suns to appropriately reward his “sacrifice” during free agency and based on all the moves they've made, it would be extremely hard to blame him for that. He wasn't willing to sacrifice his financial future just for the slight chance of barely making the playoffs in the west and a 1st round exit and on top of that he didn't believe Suns could compete in the west with the existing roster.

It seems like Dragic recognized that Bledsoe was McDonough's (and Hornacek's) "guy" and that he will remain an afterthought in McDonough's asset collection if he stays in Phoenix. After all, sacrifices were demanded of many players on the team, yet it appears that Bledsoe didn't have to sacrifice at all during these past 2 seasons.

Dragic also confirmed that Miami was in fact his only choice and said that a key factor was playing for a contender. He mentioned a few times that playing for a contender is just as important, if not more, than the size of the contract. When asked about the possible max contract he answered that in the NBA you’re also valued based on the size of your contract, so that’s why years and the final amount matter. Naturally he was full of praise for Miami in every interview he gave, but wouldn’t rule out exploring other options during his free agency.

Links:

http://ekipa24.si/clanek/kosarka/slovenci-v-tujini/554d26fbc4234/goran-dragic-cena-dokazuje-koliko-sem-vreden

http://www.vecer.com/clanek/201505096114908

http://www.rtvslo.si/sport/kosarka/dragic-in-miami-izrazila-zeljo-po-nadaljevanju-sodelovanja/364611#comments

[Qwigglez]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

[RunDogGun]

Did you really create an account just to post this?

We were well aware of Goran's opinions on the situation, and his role was to be the off guard, and he was well aware that was truth when we resigned Bledsoe. So if he thought he was going to play point guard like he did the previous year, he lied to himself. He and Bledsoe had every chance to take control of the team, and make IT irrelavent, but both started the season inconsistently, which gave IT the room to often outplay the other two guards.

He apologized for what he said about trust, and then goes back and says it again? He should have just said, "I'm happy where I'm at, and don't really want to talk about how things ended in PHX." If he wanted to, he could just have said that Sarver helped him get to Miami.

I really can't believe he said he wanted to help the team, after his agent put out his limited list of teams to trade to. He ended up putting us in a much worse position, which I'm sure he was well aware of.

He is no longer a Sun.

[RunDogGun]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

[Revived]

Its funny that they told Dragic they'll trade IT soon and then waited til last minute.

I said it in December that they should trade IT asap so that we can get back to being like last year in terms of the backcourt and yet people here thought we should hold on to IT longer because it would be a "knee-jerk trade".

Yeah, no.

[bwgood77]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

You're not truly the OFF guard if you run the team. By traditional thought, the bigger guy, or whatever you were played in college is called the shooting guard, even though his role is more of a point. Dragic didn't have nearly the opportunity to handle the ball that guys like Wade, LeBron, Kobe and Harden have. For all intents and purposes, the primary ballhandler is the point, and Dragic was not the primary ball handler often. Those other guys get the ball early in the shot clock and run the offense and Dragic rarely played that role this past year.

[Qwigglez]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

It was a solid signing for the right price, don't get me wrong. But it sounds as if McD was planning to trade IT the entire season. I bet McD had reached out to multiple teams to trade IT but they weren't gonna buy high when they could have just gotten him in free agency too. Nobody was willing to trade one of their assets for our newly acquired one.
Anyway, I just think McD slipped up in the way he was treating our players as assets and not as people. Honestly, I liked IT as a 6th man role and had we not traded for Brandon Knight, I wish we kept him. I think time was ticking and McD basically scrambled to pick up the pieces so we rushed into several trades.

[bwgood77]

Yes, I think McD was likely trying to trade him much earlier but didn't get any bites....or didn't want to accept what was being offered...and by the time he had reached an agreement, Dragic was fed up. It would have been nice if Dragic had been a bit more patient, but I understand. If you're not happy in your job, you should move on to a place that's a better fit for you.

I'm glad he told them he wanted to be traded and made it known where he would like to play. That's likely why we were able to get two first round picks for a guy that could leave us this summer because Miami felt assured he was likely to re-sign.

I'm not sure who leaked the list, but that probably helped increase the offer as well if they thought they had to bid higher to get him.

[Wildlinger]

Did you really create an account just to post this?

I just thought that I might want to make my 1st post a good one and offer some new info to Suns fans I guess you see this as a reason to attack me. Why?

We were well aware of Goran's opinions on the situation, and his role was to be the off guard, and he was well aware that was truth when we resigned Bledsoe. So if he thought he was going to play point guard like he did the previous year, he lied to himself.

That's not quite true. I remember a lot of fans being very surprised by Dragic's diminished role on offense, just as much as (apparently) Dragic was. There were plenty of discussions on different boards about this very topic. And yes, it does seem like Dragic expected to play most of his time as a point guard after he had an All NBA season playing as a point guard.

He apologized for what he said about trust, and then goes back and says it again? He should have just said, "I'm happy where I'm at, and don't really want to talk about how things ended in PHX." If he wanted to, he could just have said that Sarver helped him get to Miami.

He gave a few interviews about the trade in the US right after it and a few after he arrived to Slovenia. After those interviews he explicitly said the trade topic is - as far as he is concerned - finished. He apologized for sounding "a little to harsh" but did not recant anything he previously said. Here's a direct quote from Dragic:

When I now look back on what I said about the Suns before the trade—"I don't trust them anymore...I don't feel comfortable with my situation"—I feel bad, because it came out a little too harsh. I didn't mean it like that, but it happened in that moment, so I cannot go back and change it. I just said what I was thinking.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2383968-inside-goran-dragics-dramatic-and-game-changing-transition-with-the-miami-heat?search_query=goran%20dragic

I really can't believe he said he wanted to help the team, after his agent put out his limited list of teams to trade to. He ended up putting us in a much worse position, which I'm sure he was well aware of.

Would you rather see that he left in the summer for nothing? At least Suns got 2 1st round picks out of this whole mess which was created by McDonough's asset gathering philosophy. I don't disagree with the general approach but the implementation could be a lot better. The reason for the list was the Milwaukee rumor. Apparently McD was trying to trade Dragic to the Bucks even before his trade request.

http://www.brewhoop.com/2015/2/19/8072279/stein-bucks-turned-down-knight-for-goran-dragic-offer

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

According to Dragic that is exactly what McDounough said to him. The fact that IT was traded after Goran, confirms that. If McD had no intentions of trading Thomas, why did he? On a rebuilding team I'd rather have the Lakers pick and Thomas (with his contract) than Knight. But that's just me.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

He might have been able to do that from an off guard position, but it would be sure as hell hard to do that from the wing where he spent a lot of time watching Bled and IT run pick and rolls off the middle. Besides, Wade and Harden are right at the top of the league in usage. Dragic had games this season where his usage rate was barely higher than Plumlee's (I'm not kidding). Green and Thomas had games where their usage was almost twice what Dragic's was (again, not kidding). It would be quite hard to run a team that way, especially if your role is to space the floor from the corner for IT and Bledsoe.

[RunDogGun]

Dragic didn't spend a lot of time at the three. And when he did, our team played rather well when the front court positions were Keef and Len. Moreover, with how often guys have to switch on defense, players often guard different guys.

Again, if he expected to play point, knowing that we said we would match any offer for Bledsoe, then he was wrong. Jeff wanted ab two guard system, in which either guard could bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense. Goran had plenty of opportunity to run the offense, yet often gave the ball up to Bledsoe, just like he did with Wade once he got to Miami. You can't complain about giving up the ball, when you do it willingly.

When I said we were all aware of Goran's opinions, we were. I didn't say we knew exactly when he had his feelings. But he did quite a large amount of public complaining. I don't see the point in bringing it up again. We still only have Goran's view of what happened.

As for the IT signing, it was the right move, just didn't have the affect that seemed to be the hope. The hope seemed to be to have two ball handlers on the court at all times. Instead egos took over, and two seemed unhappy in their roles. I'm not sure what McD told Goran, but I doubt he told Goran that he only signed IT to trade him later.

Overall, Goran didn't help us out by demanding a trade, and listing only three teams he would go to.

As for the games where Goran disappeared at was barely used, care to give the games? Could one have been the Houston game, where he sucked balls?

Anyways, no new news worth discussing, just the same crap spewed earlier. I grow tired of hearing millionaires complain, and ma excuses why they didn't play as well as the previous year, get traded to the team they say they want, and put up the same numbers and continue to differ point responsibilities to the other guard.

[RunDogGun]

Yes, I think McD was likely trying to trade him much earlier but didn't get any bites....or didn't want to accept what was being offered...and by the time he had reached an agreement, Dragic was fed up. It would have been nice if Dragic had been a bit more patient, but I understand. If you're not happy in your job, you should move on to a place that's a better fit for you.

I'm glad he told them he wanted to be traded and made it known where he would like to play. That's likely why we were able to get two first round picks for a guy that could leave us this summer because Miami felt assured he was likely to re-sign.

I'm not sure who leaked the list, but that probably helped increase the offer as well if they thought they had to bid higher to get him.

But giving the list two days before the trade deadline wouldn't help negotiations, it would hurt it. It officially eliminated any offers from teams not named Miami, LAL, and NY. We may have received more from other teams, that may have taken the chance on resigning him. I mean we just talked about Marion cock blocking the Wolves trade.

But we don't know the other offers, so we can only speculate.

But again, if he was so upset with differing point responsibilities, why differ them to Wade once he got to Miami? He ended up playing the same role. Moreover, he knew we would try and resign Bledsoe, so he would still be in the same spot. Now if we started IT, Bledsoe, and Goran, I could see his point, and that would be a drastic role change, but we didn't use that lineup often. And when we did, all the guards had touches. The main problem came from inconsistent play from both Bledsoe and Goran, which gave IT the thought that he could steal a starting job.

[RunDogGun]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

It was a solid signing for the right price, don't get me wrong. But it sounds as if McD was planning to trade IT the entire season. I bet McD had reached out to multiple teams to trade IT but they weren't gonna buy high when they could have just gotten him in free agency too. Nobody was willing to trade one of their assets for our newly acquired one.
Anyway, I just think McD slipped up in the way he was treating our players as assets and not as people. Honestly, I liked IT as a 6th man role and had we not traded for Brandon Knight, I wish we kept him. I think time was ticking and McD basically scrambled to pick up the pieces so we rushed into several trades.

I think he was thinking about what if we had to start the season without Bledsoe, or if Bledsoe took the QO. Once we resigned Bledsoe, I'm guessing he was exploring all options. I don't know how McD treated the players, nor do I know how things were worded to the players. They may have easily misunderstood. Plus agents have their say with their clients. Who knows what they said?

Either way, Goran knew he would play the guard position. He knew he would guard players bigger than him. He played some time at the three, so what? I never heard LB complaining about guarding threes when he did it here.

[Revived]

OP, thanks for posting. I don't see what it matters if its your 1st or your 100th post.

Could you do me a favor and translate what Goran said about his brother Zoran in one of those links? I tried using google translate but it doesn't quite make sense on there. Thanks!

[RunDogGun]

Good find. It shows that McD treats our players as assets and not people, and it backfired on us. Picking up IT just to trade him later was another dumb move. I appreciate McD is trying to build a contender by asset accumulation but I think this makes free agents question our motive to bring them in.
Props to Sarver though. He's had a bad reputation for a while of being a cheap ass, but at least he is giving players what they want when they demand something. That should account for something.

We don't know if McD signed IT just to trade him. We were still in limbo with Bledsoe, and McD had the chance to sign a 20/6 player for $7 million. A no brainier if you ask me. The issue came up when both Bledsoe and Goran gave IT room to make his case to start.

Wade runs the Miami team, and he is the off guard. Harden does the same. Goran could have been the team leader from the off guard position.

You're not truly the OFF guard if you run the team. By traditional thought, the bigger guy, or whatever you were played in college is called the shooting guard, even though his role is more of a point. Dragic didn't have nearly the opportunity to handle the ball that guys like Wade, LeBron, Kobe and Harden have. For all intents and purposes, the primary ballhandler is the point, and Dragic was not the primary ball handler often. Those other guys get the ball early in the shot clock and run the offense and Dragic rarely played that role this past year.

Well it's sort of the chicken and the egg for me with Goran. He had opportunities to run the team while Bledsoe was on the court, but often gave up the ball. I saw the same thing in games once he got to Miami. Maybe he was butthurt and didn't want to fight for the ball handling responsibilities. IT didn't start, so for most of Goran's time on the court, it should have been the same thing as last year, when he and Bledsoe was on the court.

Now in my opinion, when IT and Dragic was on the court, Dragic should have handled the ball, and have IT be the off guard role. But again, I don't know if Goran was already fed up with things, angry, or whatever, and just differed the point to someone else. The only one that would really know that would be Jeff, and I don't think he has weighed in on this. Honestly, I think Jeff saw Goran as himself.

[Wildlinger]

Again, if he expected to play point, knowing that we said we would match any offer for Bledsoe, then he was wrong. Jeff wanted ab two guard system, in which either guard could bring the ball up the court and initiate the offense. Goran had plenty of opportunity to run the offense, yet often gave the ball up to Bledsoe, just like he did with Wade once he got to Miami. You can't complain about giving up the ball, when you do it willingly.

That was last year. This season the Suns did not use the 2 PG system like they did the previous season. Bledsoe and Thomas were rotating at the point and Dragic spent most of his time playing as an off guard and on the wing. According to basketball reference he spent only 7% of his time as a point guard, 11% as a wing and 83% as a shooting guard. It's worth noting that in december when IT was out with injury, Dragic (in 14 games) averaged 20 pts (53.7 FG%, 40.6 3P%) with 5,1 ast and 3.6 reb. That was when he was put in a similar role like he played during his All NBA run.

When I said we were all aware of Goran's opinions, we were. I didn't say we knew exactly when he had his feelings. But he did quite a large amount of public complaining. I don't see the point in bringing it up again. We still only have Goran's view of what happened.

I don't remember Dragic doing any public complaining... at all. The only thing I remember him saying is: "We're all point guards and there's only one ball". Other than that I don't believe he publicly complained at all. Would you mind providing some links to those complaints.

As for the games where Goran disappeared at was barely used, care to give the games? Could one have been the Houston game, where he sucked balls?

Well, there was more than just one Houston game. There was a game against Houston where he got his 2nd technical of the season and Hornacek sat him down for entire 2nd half of the game because of the countless Morrii technicals and the team policy to sit a player when he receives one.

There was also another Houston game. In fact the last game Dragic played for the Suns. That was when he scored 20 pts on 7-11 shooting (3-4 from 3). But even in a game where he was hot, he had a ridiculously low usage rate that was barely higher than Plumlee's (Plumlee 16.1 USG%, Dragic 17.6 USG%, Tucker 18, IT 18.3, Mook 19.2, Keef 21.5, Bled 31 USG%).

http://stats.nba.com/game/#!/0021400784/advanced/?sort=USG_PCT&dir=1

He had less shots and touches than Bledsoe, Tucker, Markieff and Thomas. He was visibly frustrated a few times when Bled wouldn't pass to him, when he was open at the 3 point line. I distinctly remember it because C-Webb mentioned this exact point more than just a few times during the broadcast. The lack of team cohesion was clearly visible at that point of the season.

There were more than just a few games like that. Dragic had only the 5th highest USG% last season with the Suns, behind Green, Thomas, Bledsoe and Keef.

[RunDogGun]

This whole thread is Goran publicly complaining, do I really need to give a link? And please tell me you think "they made a fool out of me" as a complaint. If not, then I'm done, Goran is in the right in your mind, and the team is in the wrong.

I'm in the mindset that Goran was in control of his play, not other players on the bench.

As for BR's percentages, what does that mean, that 7% of the time, he was the only point on the floor? That only 7% of the time he brought the ball up, or initiated the offense? Pretty weak use of that data, for me.

[RunDogGun]

A two point guard system doesn't have to mean that two guards share the ball equally. It just means that when running, either guard can bring up the ball. I think Jeff envisioned a system like he and KJ, where it didn't matter who brought the ball up, both were equally capable to do this. Both would know the plays and could run the offense.

But again, please explain why if Goran hated differing the point responsibilities, why did he he do it, both here and in Miami?

[Wildlinger]

OP, thanks for posting. I don't see what it matters if its your 1st or your 100th post.

Could you do me a favor and translate what Goran said about his brother Zoran in one of those links? I tried using google translate but it doesn't quite make sense on there. Thanks!

If you mean this link

http://ekipa24.si/clanek/kosarka/slovenci-v-tujini/554d26fbc4234/goran-dragic-cena-dokazuje-koliko-sem-vreden

...here's what he said:

Reporter asked Goran if Zoran’s contract is in any way tied to his, meaning if Zoran was initially part of the trade as well, or if Goran (or his agent) personally requested if the Suns could also trade Zoran?

No, he wasn’t part of my trade request. Phoenix decided to trade him on their own. They probably knew he wouldn’t be very happy or comfortable in Phoenix after I left, so they wisely decided to trade him as well. He didn’t get an opportunity to play in Phoenix. He has a guaranteed contract for next season as well and coaches seem to be happy with him in Miami. He played really well at the last game of the season and the coach told me he didn’t know Zoran was actually that good.

[RunDogGun]

As for Zoran, I would love to hear why he refused to go to the DLeague with us, but had no problem doing it in Miami.

Man I was wrong advocating for us to get Zoran.

[Wildlinger]

This whole thread is Goran publicly complaining, do I really need to give a link? And please tell me you think "they made a fool out of me" as a complaint. If not, then I'm done, Goran is in the right in your mind, and the team is in the wrong.

You clearly insinuated that Dragic was complaining publicly before the trade. The particular comment you're mentioning was made after the trade, as I clearly indicated in my 1st post.