Free-agent guard Goran Dragić plans to sign with the Milwaukee Bucks, league sources told The Athletic on Saturday. Here’s what you need to know:
- Dragić, 36, was waived by the Chicago Bulls this week.
- He averaged 6.4 points, 2.7 assists and 1.4 rebounds through 51 games for the Bulls this season.
- The Bucks also signed center Meyers Leonard to a second 10-day contract Saturday, the team announced.
- Milwaukee (45-17) sits atop the Eastern Conference after winning its last 16 games.
Backstory
Dragić has averaged 13.3 points, 4.7 assists and three rebounds per game through 939 games in his 15-year career. He spent the last two seasons with the Raptors, Nets and Bulls after multiyear stints with the Heat, Rockets and Suns.
Dragić would join a surging Bucks squad, which last routed the Magic 139-117 on Wednesday for their 16th straight win to tie for the third-longest winning streak in franchise history and the 25th-longest winning streak in NBA history.
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How Dragić fits with the Bucks
Dragić’s role with the Bucks is not immediately clear. The Bucks have the NBA’s best record and already use Jevon Carter as a backup point guard. Carter, 27, is having the best season of his career and is the only player who has played in every game for the Bucks this season.
While Carter and Dragić could both potentially serve as backup point guards under Mike Budenholzer, as players, they could not be more different. While Carter pressures opposing point guards full-court defensively, he doesn’t typically bring the ball up the floor and plays off the ball most of the time on offense. As Bucks fans might remember from the Heat’s dismantling of the Bucks in the bubble in 2020, Dragić is far more of a pure point guard.
For the Bucks, the appeal of Dragić comes primarily from what he can do with the ball in his hands. At his peak, he was one of the most efficient point guards in the NBA, showing off a rare ability to finish around the rim from creative angles. That ability has dissipated as his athleticism has waned. Per statistics from Cleaning the Glass, Dragić is shooting 58 percent at the rim this season, a stark departure from his peak rim-finishing seasons when he’d make between 65 and 69 percent at the rim. — Nehm
Required reading
- Why the Bucks signed Goran Dragić: What he brings, where he fits and his potential role
- How Goran Dragić became Bulls’ best alley-oop artist: ‘You cannot be scared to pass’
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)