Suns VP David Griffin Talks about Dragic

by Seth Pollack on Dec 20, 2008 11:02 AM MST

In the last episode of the indispensable Suns podcast Orange You Glad you Listened (which is much better then the cheesy name might imply) we hear Suns Sr. VP of Basketball Operations (and Kerr's right hand man when it comes to player decisions) talk about the Suns so far this season.

I highly encourage listening to the entire 30+ minute interview which can be found here.

What struck me as most fascinating (beyond hearing about Griff's rise from Suns gopher to his lofty role) was the conversation about Goran Dragic.

A lot of Suns fans are ready to give up on this kid but the reality, like it or not, is that he will be part of this team for quite some time. Griff had some candid things to say about the young Slovenian point guard.

I took the liberty of editing the entire podcast down to just this portion which you can hear here.

Griff explains that Dragic missed playing in the Summer League and wasn't able to play 5 on 5 all of September in the team's informal work outs
That left Dragic with no team to get up to speed on the NBA game and to even just knock the rust off before training camp started
The coaching staff has helped him improve his confidence which is his biggest weakness
He's taking the shots he needs to now in the game
In practice he shoots the ball very well and is working w/ Coach Igor after practice as well
He doesn't have the confidence to translate that to game situations
He does very well on the glass and plays the passing lanes
He needs to make himself a weapon
Thunder Dan thinks he's ready to play for the Suns

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on Dragic

I do agree. This year shouldn’t matter at all. If he does gets to speed later this year it will be more then enough.
If you guys remember Dragic shouldn’t have started as backup this year at all.
It’s just that that Suns couldn’t find veteran pg to sign, so he had to fill in in absence of Barbosa.
Other thing is, how hard is for rookie, when veterans are lost? And I’m not sure suns still found themselves as a team.

by evnara on Dec 20, 2008 3:44 PM MST reply actions