As the preseason was winding down I had this idea to do a summary of Goran Dragic's performance. After all the drama in getting him here, I'm very interested in how he's doing and I am quite sure other Sun's fans are too.
I even had a title picked out:
How do you say "consistent" in Slovenian?
The answer by the way is "združljivy" and I thought it would be cute to say "Dragic" also meant consistent.
I had seen the kid play all of two times (in preseason) and noticed in the box score of the other 4 games that he'd been doing pretty well. And by pretty well I mean a lot of assists (supported by my two observations of him passing the ball well) and a lot of rebounds (supported by the fact that he had as many as the 7ft Robin Lopez).
His shooting had been mediocre at best but I wasn't (and still am not) concerned about that. He seemed (in two observations) to be smooth and steady with the ball and that was enough for me to report him "združljivy".
I even garnered a few quotes from an official Suns source who said:
Dragic seems to be picking the NBA game up faster than I thought he would. During training camp, I saw him make a lot of passes that I immediately knew would be picked off. I think he is learning how to make better decisions on the floor more quickly than I imagined.
and
I don't know if he has formed any close bonds on the team but he seems to be handling the pressure pretty well. I spoke with him after the scrimmage and he was surprised at how many fans had come to a scrimmage. He said he was nervous at first because the fans were so close to the court but he said it wasn't nearly as scary as playing in Europe where you never knew who was going to be in the stands or what they were going to do. He knows English really well and I think he'll fit in just fine.
Then came Mr. Paul Coro who reminded me that there still is a wide gap between a blogger on the sidelines (with his two observations and the box scores) and a true sports journalist with both the experience to know what questions to ask and the access to get them answered.
This is a much more accurate portrayal of where Dragic is:
Dragic's results have been all over the place.
"That's part of being a rookie," Porter said. "You look great one night and totally lost the next.
"He keeps getting himself in situations where he's trying to do too much in early offense and just not realizing where his strengths are."
So, I think I will hold off on giving Mr. Dragic the consistent monikor until I have a chance to see him play at least two or seventeen more times (but I do like what little I've seen so far).