After 15 productive seasons, guard Goran Dragic has decided to retire from the NBA.
He came into the league during the 2008-09 season as a second-round draft choice by the San Antonio Spurs, and his longest with one team was with the Miami Heat.
Dragic admitted per NBACentral that he didn’t want to play again in his native Europe and that the only team he wanted to play for this season was the Heat, but it didn’t quite work out.
Goran Dragic says he had offers from other teams but only wanted to play for Miami
“I never wanted to go back to Europe. I wouldn’t want to be without my children living in the US for a year. The only option was Miami, with whom I was in talks. In the end, it didn’t work out… pic.twitter.com/G0PgqWFLNe
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) January 4, 2024
Dragic spent his first three seasons coming off the bench for the Phoenix Suns, who acquired him in a draft day trade with the Spurs.
In 2010, he started to emerge as a spark plug off the bench, and in Game 3 of the second round of the playoffs, he scored 26 points against the Spurs to propel Phoenix to a four-game sweep of Tim Duncan and company.
He was named the Most Improved Player while also being selected to the All-Star team and the All-NBA Third Team during the 2013-14 season, and the following season, he was traded to Miami.
There, he played a key role in the team reaching the 2020 NBA Finals, where they lost to LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Dragic also had a successful national career for his native Slovenia, and he led it to the 2017 EuroBasket European title by scoring 35 points in the championship game against Serbia.
He ended his NBA career with lifetime averages of 13.3 points and 4.7 assists a game while shooting 45.9 percent from the field and 36.2 percent from 3-point range.
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