Dragic responded to Butler's comment that the Heat would've won the series vs. the Celtics if he had played. The Slovenian guard joked Butler was a Serbian in his previous life and praised Kyrie Irving for his change throughout the recent years.
Goran Dragic retired in the middle of the season after a decorated basketball career. In a recent interview, he talked about his career and addressed some NBA matters.
Dragic spent six seasons with the Miami Heat, playing there from 2015 until 2021. Throughout his time there, the Slovenian star became good friends with a number of Heat players, one of whom is Jimmy Butler.
"I know Jimmy well, I played with him for four years, we reached the final and all that. I played well with him. Good guy, an all-or-nothing player. He spends a lot of time in Europe, he travels non-stop, he likes tennis, he likes football, he likes basketball. I always say that he was a Serb or someone from the Balkans in his past life. He has some connection with our people. It can be seen he loves us, and we love him, so all the best to Jimmy," Dragic said in an interview with Bojan Vinulovic from Sportal.
Butler's 2023-24 season didn't end on a good note. The superstar forward was injured throughout the entire NBA Playoffs first-round series against the Boston Celtics.
Talking with Rock The Bells after the series was over, Butler was confident the result would've been entirely different if he had played. "If I was playing, Boston would be at home," he said.
Asked about the statement, Dragic wasn't so sure.
"Yeah, I mean, realistically, if we look at it, I think Boston was better," Dragic said. "But I admire Pat [Riley] and [Eric] Spoelstra and all these people who work in the organization. They always say that we will not give up, we will always play until the end, and there are no excuses, so we know that a lot of players were injured."
"Terry Rozier didn't play, Jimmy Butler didn't play, then Duncan Robinson was hurt, and you had Tyler Herro, who only played 41 games in the season, so Spoelstra had a lot of problems all season," Dragic explained. "At the end of the day, he's one of the best coaches in the league and he always somehow finds an answer to all these problems. I think they had a good season compared to what they were able to achieve."
With multiple players injured, Nikola Jovic got the starting nod in all five games during the series. The Serbian youngster averaged 9.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game. Dragic thinks Jovic being able to showcase himself was a positive in an otherwise negative situation.
"I think we have to look at it from both sides. If there weren't so many injured players, then maybe Jovic wouldn't have gotten such a chance. From this point of view, it's good that he got such a chance to show himself to people that he can play and that they believe in him, and that is also good for the future," the former player explained.
Besides Jimmy Butler, Dragic has played with a number of NBA superstars. One of them was Kyrie Irving, who is now thriving with the Dallas Mavericks after years of being in the public spotlight for the wrong reasons more often than not.
"It's unusual for me because I played with him in Brooklyn for a year, and I know everything that was going on in the locker room. I wondered what this was, where it came from, what kind of behavior, and what kind of problems he had in these clubs, in Boston, and in Brooklyn," Dragic recalled.
"You never know what happens to people in their private lives. It can also affect your mood, how you play, and how you are at work. Now I can say that it is nice to watch him become a leader, how calm he is now, how he leads the team. I also listened to the interview yesterday after the game, and everything he said was somehow visible on the court. I can only say that maybe he finally understood how and what he could do, and I think that Dallas is so successful because of him. He's a leader now, these younger players now follow him, and yes, it is nice to see that."
Dragic began his NBA career in 2008, playing alongside Shaquille O'Neal, Amar'e Stoudemire, Steve Nash, and Grant Hill in the Phoenix Suns the first year after Mike D'Antoni, who popularized the 7-second offense, departed.
The 7-second Suns were pioneers in NBA basketball. Now, almost every single NBA team plays similarly to the Suns of the early 2000s.
"Things change. When I arrived, we had a lot of good international players, you had [Manu] Ginobili, [Tony] Parker, Peja Stojakovic, [Dirk] Nowitzki. But now you have players who are top 5 in the league, they are always in the race for the MVP title, for the best player, for the title. But yes, basketball has changed," Dragic said.
"In 2008, when I came to the NBA, I played with Shaq. Back then, they had centers who played inside, they didn't play at the perimeter, they didn't shoot threes. We were an up-tempo team at the time, finishing everything in the first 7-8 seconds of the possession. We shot an average of 18 three-pointers per game, we were number one [in the league at it] back then. And that was kind of unimaginable at the time. And now, as I look at it, teams play 90 pick-and-rolls per game, shoot 50-60 threes per game," he compared.
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