3. What do you make out of this quote by Dragic when asked why the three point guards have yet to play a complete game together?
"“There’s only one ball and we are all point guards. It’s an easy answer, but that’s hard. It’s sacrifice though. It’s the way it is, we need to embrace that and try to play well.”"
Zimmerman: Dragic seems most willing to sacrifice his individual numbers to play with Eric Bledsoe and Isaiah Thomas. It takes buy-in to play without the ball. Bledsoe has been hit harder than either of the other point guards in my opinion. When he’s not getting touches and struggling with turnovers, he has sulked first and turned into a defensive monster second. Dragic is saying this, in the words of Fox Sports Arizona’s Randy Hill:
Many observers are wondering how Hornacek can keep so many duplicate Suns happy. It's their job to make HIM happy, IMO.
— Randy Hill (@RHillskills) November 15, 2014
Chasen: To me, there isn’t much here. The point guards are figuring out how to play together, and I think this will be a question better revisited later in the season. That being said, I think Dragic has seemed like the one most willing to give up his touches for the good of the team, and I think that says a lot about him as a player.
Weisert: Take it at face value. They’re doing something they’ve never done at any point in their careers. They have to learn an entirely new brand of basketball and that takes time.
Schall: It’s Goran Dragic being real. It was a calculated risk bringing in Isaiah Thomas despite his relatively cheap contract. Ideally Dragic’s statement is simply indicative of growing pains and is just something all three players will adjust to over time. It makes you wonder (despite age, health and talent level saying otherwise) if the Suns wouldn’t have been better off biting the bullet and resigning Frye instead of Thomas. It would have likely resulted in an increased (and more efficient) production from both Dragic and Eric Bledsoe. Whether it would have been better for the team long term is more difficult to say.
Saar: The easy answer is the three point guards don’t play a full game because it would be a disaster defensively. Neither Dragic or Bledsoe are big enough to handle small forwards for a whole game. One can almost read frustration into it, but they are still in the beginning phase of figuring out this unique guard configuration and it will take some time. They need to sacrifice until they figure it out.