Solving the Backup PG Concern

[Indy]

It was one quarter in one game and the series was already over.

[Split T]

Ya it was fun and I absolutely loved that as the nail in the coffin, but it was 12 years ago now. We even dumped Dragic the year after that. 13-14 season would be my first bullet point in a why is Dragic a great suns player presentation. I just think that’s about it though. We had 1 season and 1 quarter. I’d have Dragic right with Marbury on my favorite suns pg’s…he also beat the spurs once in the playoffs with a crazy shot(1 game, I know we lost the series)

[Superbone]

It was one quarter in one game and the series was already over.

And we're going to totally forget the lost phxsuns.net year?

[Split T]

Hahaha, true

[JeremyG]

It was one quarter in one game and the series was already over.

As a Suns fan, you should know better than to say a 2-0 lead means a series is over.

[Split T]

It was one quarter in one game and the series was already over.

As a Suns fan, you should know better than to say a 2-0 lead means a series is over.

For some reason I always thought that was game 4, but I guess it was only game 3. Still, it was 1 quarter in a series we swept. It did win us that game, but we’re probably talking about the difference between a sweep and a 5 game series, 6 at worst.

[Indy]

It was one quarter in one game and the series was already over.

As a Suns fan, you should know better than to say a 2-0 lead means a series is over.

For some reason I always thought that was game 4, but I guess it was only game 3. Still, it was 1 quarter in a series we swept. It did win us that game, but we’re probably talking about the difference between a sweep and a 5 game series, 6 at worst.

this

[Mori Chu]

There's no need to underrate Dragic's accomplishment. He was (I believe) just a second-year player, and he had been pretty inconsistent to that point. We're up 2-0 on the Spurs and we're playing Game 3 in San Antonio. It was actually a very close game around the end of the 3rd quarter; I think we were either narrowly down or tied when Dragic started to catch fire. If he had not had a strong game, it's possible we lose and now it's 2-1 and the next game is in SAS home court. Who knows if they find a way to make it 2-2? Winning that Game 3 basically closed out the series. And Dragic completely demolished the Spurs in that 4th quarter.

It mattered that Dragic did that. We had gotten wrecked by the Spurs multiple times in the 2000s in the Nash era. We just couldn't seem to get over the hump against them. We don't have to go back over the Horry shove, the Duncan OT 3, all the gut wrenching losses to them. And then Goran Dragic just comes out in this Game 3 and says, no, F you, we are the better team now. That was the end of it. We really exorcised our Spurs demons with his performance. I think our team, our franchise needed that. We needed to punch the Spurs in the mouth.

It may also have helped Dragic's career. It was a real moment for him. He has gone on to have a really nice NBA career as a starting PG. Having a huge performance like that can really carry a guy in his younger years.

Yeah, it may or may not have swung the series. But it mattered. And it was fucking awesome.

[JeremyG]

Not to mention the Spurs drafted him for us.

[Split T]

My purpose was never to minimize the game by Dragic. It was an incredible game and remains one of my favorite suns moments. My point is that it’s still just one game. That game doesn’t do a ton for me in the big picture. He was pretty meh the rest of those playoffs and wasn’t playing that well the next year when we shipped him off to Houston. Even when he came back for round 2, he was still a below average starting pg until his 2013-14 breakout. That was a really fun season. That was his real coming out party, the game 3 4th Q was more of a fluke, just got hot at the right time.

Ya McD clearly botched the handling of the Dragic/Bledsoe/IT situation, but it also sounds like Sarver poisoned the waters the year before with his all-star talk.

What it comes down to for me is that we got 1 great season and 1 incredible Q out of Dragic’s time here. Some people want to put him up there just behind Nash, Kidd, KJ, and CP3…I just think there’s a massive gap there and I’d have him in the Marbury, Bledsoe, Rubio group.