options for back-up centers

but he would be nice

What’s with the Pat Burke mockery? And who knows if he would come back to the Suns after the two-year benching he got here?

hiding underneath a bridge with his club, waiting for villagers to pass by.

that’s funny stuff.

in Vegas two summers ago. The big Arkansas mountain man of a dude w/ scruffy beard and all. No offense to speak of but he’s long and played hard.

I still am intrigued by Sims of course

Chuck Nevitt is not still pklaying

It’s too bad you’re a Dragic hater. I don’t think anything I say will change your mind… but whatever, I’ll at least humor myself.

In the NBA the PG is one of the most difficult positions and development is ordinarily slow especially for players who come up and fill a back-up position for their first few years. Just ask that one guy with 2 MVP trophies, who came into the league as a 3rd option behind two hall of fame point-guards in KJ and Jason Kidd… Now keep that fresh and check it:

1. It’s tough for rookies in the NBA – let alone for foreign 20-something year old rookies to come to a far away land and have to adapt to the change in culture both on and off the court. Add to that the roller-coaster season the Suns had and it can easily be said that his rookie year was abnormally chalked full of adversity.
2. Dragic was Jekyll & Hyde-like under the two coaches last year. In 51 games under T.P., Dragic only stepped on the court in 26 of them, averaging around 12 MPG… yet when A.G. took the reigns Dragic played in 29 of the 31 games he coached as the Suns head coach and averaged nearly 14.5 MPG… Not only did T.P. bury Dragic on the bench – but under A.G. Dragic’s numbers improved in every category. His PPG went from 2.92 to 5.86 – he averaged an assist more p/g and nearly doubled both his FG and 3PG percentages from 28.7 and 18.2 to 41.3 and 40.2% respectively.
3. Comparing Dragic to Rondo doesn’t quite make sense to make your point… given Rondo entered the league playing a lot of minutes and in more games – if you take Dragic’s per minute stats and give him as many minutes as Rondo, the numbers would be VERY close… OH except for the fact that Rondo can’t shoot free throws and Tim Duncan probably could beat him in a 3 point shooting contest. With that – Rajon didn’t even have a supposedly ‘break-out’ season until last year.. after he was a starter for a whole season (with numbers that aren’t exactly eye-popping) on the NBA Championship team. Dragic is taller – stronger – maybe not as athletic (though Dragic has some sick crossovers and iso/fastbreak moves) – but definitely a better defender that Rondo in my opinion.
4. If you want to compare… compare him to Jarryd Bayless who was a lottery pick (11th overall) last year in the same draft (Dragic the 45th pick) and played about as much as Dragic did last year. I’ll make it easy for you – here is a chart.
5. Just for fun you should check out Nash’s numbers for his first two seasons (random fact: both Nash and Dragic came into the league at age 22). I’ll say it again, point guards who come into the league as back-ups (especially behind big minute hall of famers) take longer to develop.

Dragic is one of the hard workers on the team like you mentioned, and he wants to learn. He came back to Phoenix this offseason with 15 more pounds of muscle and has shown a lot of improvement through his Summer and Euro-League stints. I think in the near future we will see all the hype about the Dragon materialize and produce beautiful fruit for Phoenix – BUT in the meantime… we just signed our 2 (will be 3 after this year)-time MVP to a contract extension so Goran Dragic will have plenty of time to develop into the PG we need him to be.

P.s. – I know it might be overkill – but I like this kid. At planetorange.net my SN is Magic_Dragic so go figure I would jump on you… you especially lit me up with the whole

I’ve seen NOTHING from this Dragic kid….Talk about someone that seems to clam up under the bright lights…

That’s like blood in the water for me!! haha ;)