It seems as though the Phoenix Suns are keen on re-signing Goran Dragic, but the long term plans that the team has for the player are not sure certain. If a team was so determined to keep a player on board, you would think that they would be looking to cement his place on the team but of course, when you have concerns about losing a player to free agency, you sometimes take any form of evasive action to prevent that. At the moment, Dragic has a number of options open to him and the NBA Trade Deadline of 3pm ET on Thursday the 19th of February is certainly pressing the issue when it comes to the immediate future of the guard.
One thing to bear in mind is the fact that the Suns have a number of guards in their team and some of them are on big money. Eric Bledsoe has recently signed a $70 million deal, spread out over 5 years with the Suns and Isaiah Thomas agreed a four year and $27 million contract by the time he got to Phoenix. Dragic will be looking at these players, thinking about their security, thinking about their finances and then determining if he is going to get a similar sort of deal. At the moment, if Dragic turns down the $7.5m option on him for 2015/16, he will become a free agent once this season concludes.
The players agent is set for talks
On Tuesday the 17th of February, the agent of the player is all set to meet with officials from the Suns and the team stated that they are still determined to keep the player on board. Robert Sarver was recently seen at an All-Star event that was hosted by Bill Duffy, who is the agent of Daric. This may mean nothing but it certainly got a few tongues wagging about what is likely to take place with the player.
Of course, there are always going to be a few rumours to pick through when you move close to deadline day and it seems as though the Suns were pretty active at the weekend, and not just through attending big parties in Brooklyn! The Bleacher Report suggests that the Suns were working on dealing Dragic as opposed to losing him through free agency. Perhaps that was the reasons Sarver turned up at the party, or maybe he just enjoys attending parties.
There have been plenty of trade rumours involving the Suns
There have been earlier suggestions that the Phoenix Suns were far more likely to trade Thomas before the deadline than they were Dragic but perhaps they have weighed up that option. If they had traded Thomas and then Dragic decided to leave as a free agent, it would have been a monumentally stupid piece of business, so perhaps this has impacted on this decision.
This is the second period that Dragic has enjoyed with the Suns, who played 88 games for the Houston Rockets between 2010 and 2012. The player has averaged 16.2 points per game this season, which places him second for the Suns, ranking him just behind Bledsoe. Daric has also managed to provide an average of 4.1 assists and an average of 3.6 rebounds per game, so he is clearly a handy player to have around the place. The Suns are currently sitting in eight position in the Western Conference, holding on to a 29-25 record.
If the team was only thinking about the remainder of this campaign, there is no doubt that Daric would remain in Phoenix but there are other issues at stake here and it may be that it is best for all parties for the player to make a move before the Thursday deadline.
At 3-1 down in the NBA Finals, many people predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would lie down, perhaps looking for the pain to be over and done with for another year. After all, they were facing the record breakers, the team that had shown themselves to be the best of the best by a good...