Goran Dragic Climbing up the ladder at Houston Rockets – NBA Feature
Ever since the NBA opened up its DRAFT to foreign players, basketball athletes from all over the world have shown interest of playing in the NBA. Many have been drafted and gone on to have successful careers. In today’s NBA, foreign
players are excelling as much as any of the national players and their strength in numbers has also risen. Yao Ming, Dirk Nowitzki and Manu Ginobili are just three of the many international players who have made it big in the NBA.
Goran Dragic is another of the international players who is making news this season. Originally from Slovenia, Dragic currently plays for the Houston Rockets at guard position, and is in his 4th season in the NBA. Before
Houston, he was part of the Phoenix Suns who traded him in February last year to the Rockets.
Dragic has been a bench player throughout his career, a stand-by guard to fill in the minutes while the starting guards rested. This season has been different.
Houston star player and starting guard Kyle Lowry has been out of action for the last 14 games with a bacterial infection and there is no news as to when he will return. In his absence, Dragic was given the opportunity by Rockets
coach Kevin McHale and he has utilized the opportunity to its maximum.
“It’s every players dream to someday start a game, which was my dream when I was a kid to lead a team in the NBA. Dragic recently said;
With Kyle Lowry and Kevin Martin, the two top scorers for the Rockets missing in action, Dragic has been able to play his own game and has shined in their absence.
“The game, there is maybe a different adjustment than when I was coming from the bench,” said Dragic.
Dragic is averaging 10.2 points per game, 4.7 assists per game, 2.3 rebounds per game and his field goal percentage is 47% this season. Compare that with last year, when he was averaging 7.6 points per game, 3.1 assists per game,
2.1 rebounds per game and getting 18.2 minutes of playing time per game.
But the best is yet to come.
In the last ten games that he has played for the Rockets, he is averaging 18.3 points, 8.7 assists and a field goal percentage of 53%. He is also averaging 37.3 minutes per game, a huge improvement from his previous statistics.
Fans in Houston have started to compare him with Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks, who too had a dramatic turnaround in his career after he was started by the Knicks coach to fill in for Baron Davis, who was suffering from injury.
Dragic however is a much more consistent and technical player than Lin, and will go on to be more sustainable and successful in the long run. Just in the last three games, he has scored 21 against Chicago, 22 against Indiana and
25 against Memphis.
Dragic’s time almost never came when in December, the Rockets tried to trade him along with Luis Scola and Kevin Martin to New Orleans Hornets. The deal did not come through and much to the benefit of the Rockets, Dragic stayed
in Houston.
He is now in the final year of his original contract and come summer, he will be a free agent. But he is not concerned about that at the moment. For now, he wants to concentrate on the season and help Houston make a good run at
the Playoffs.
“I was practicing all my life for that moment". Said Dragic
The Houston Rockets are currently in 7th position and poised to enter the playoffs. This will be a great opportunity for Dragic to show his skills and help his team achieve glory. How this season ends up for Dragic and
the Houston Rockets, we will have to wait and see.
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