How Goran Dragic could help the Los Angeles Lakers: Scoring
With Dragic’s minutes dwindling and his starting position on the Miami Heat now surrendered to Kendrick Nunn, you would think that his scoring would fall off a cliff, after all, basketball is very much a confidence game and losing minutes and your starting spot has the potential to ruin a players confidence.
That line of thinking seemingly does not apply to Goran Dragic.
While Dragic’s number has gone down, they are still on par with his previous point and assist totals from throughout his career.
This season Dragic is averaging 16.1 points and 5.1 points in 28.4 minutes a game.
Understandably, as he has gotten older his minutes would diminish to maximize his efficiency and it has worked an absolute treat for the Miami Heat with Dragic producing wonderfully off the bench.
With the likes of Avery Bradley and Alex Caruso, the Lakers would not be running Dragic into the ground. They would be maximizing his minutes similar to how they use JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard this season. Have Dragic start the game alongside LeBron James, have Dragic play heavily in the 1st quarter and 3rd quarter. Have the likes of Caruso or Bradley play heavily in the 2nd and 4th and even have more minutes per night than Dragic.
This overlap allows for Dragic to maximize his time on the floor when LeBron is off it and allows for a defensive line-up to finish games.
Even at 33, Dragic has the potential to be a really solid scoring option for the purple and gold. Capable of scoring at each level of the game, he has developed into a bit of a sharpshooter from the 3-point line shooting 37.7% from the 3-point line this year.
Putting Dragic and Green on the floor together would allow for the Lakers to have excellent floor spacing and 3-point shooting from the guard spots.
Dragic shares a similar love to weaving his way through traffic in the paint like Steve Nash, causing opposing defenders to scramble to not allow him to get easy baskets.
If Dragic was to join the Los Angeles Lakers next season and he was able to continue to score in or around 16ppg, the purple and gold would be ecstatic with that level of production.
This would offer them a 3rd scorer who can take the pressure off the likes of Kyle Kuzma and Danny Green to score.
Dragic would be a huge asset for this Lakers team.