Dragons Breath

via ambasketball.com

Now I know that Goran Dragic is no longer a Phoenix Sun, but I really came to like the kid when he played here and fall on the side that the trade was a very misguided one. Though I do think he has gotten more chances to prove himself in Houston then he did in Phoenix. Still he remains on the bench behind a incredibly solid and steadily maturing Kyle Lowry. Honestly I cannot blame them in Houston, Kyle is playing out of his mind, and I don't think they quite know what they have laying dormant on the bench in Goran "The Dragon" Dragic.

Most people don't see the same up-side that I see in him, but I have stats to back this up. While this is only a small portion of his total career I decided to look only at games where he played the same amount of minutes a starter would...so lets say 30 min. Then I went back through his entire 3 year stint in the NBA thus far and took only the games that applied, and needless to say what I found surprised even the biggest supporter of the man. In the 13 games he has played over 30 minutes the man has managed to put up numbers that many teams would love to replicate in their own starting point guards.

Join me after the jump to find out...

So far this season the youngster is averaging career highs in both points per game, assists, field goal percentage, three point percentage and (thank god) free throw percentage.

His stat line for the first 8 games is:

20min

8.3 ppg

4.0 apg

Shooting 50% overall and 39% from three point land with only 1 turnover a game.

So far this is only average, but he has only logged 2 games this season over 30 minutes, and in those two games he really showed he can play. For his career he has 13 games where he has been allowed to play over 30 minutes here are the stats for those games.

38 min 4rb 10ast 17pts

35 min 3rb 5ast 17pts

40min 3rb 10ast 14pts

40min 4rb 10ast 16pts

31min 3rb 3ast *32pts

30min 4rb 4ast 5pts

30min 4rb 6ast 16pts

32min 2rb 5ast 11pts

38min 10rb 7ast 14pts

53min 10rb 7ast 15pts

44min *11rb *11ast 11pts

36min 3rb 11ast 10pts

38min 4rb 8ast 20pts

Average:

15.2 pts

7.5 ast

5.0 rbs

*career high

So as you can see, when Goran Dragic is allowed to play he really produces consistently. Only playing time will tell if this kid can really take over a starting spot, but I wish that the Suns would have let it happen when he was here. For some reason, though, I have a feeling that he, like Steve Nash, will be back in our jersey soon enough. Seriously they still even have him in his Suns jersey on the nba.com stats page.