Miami Heat: Goran Dragic Offers Insight On Precious Achiuwa Progression

With the Miami Heat getting ready to kick things off on Thursday against their arch-rivals, the Milwaukee Bucks, things are going well there. The guys are, seemingly, meshing well and that goes from the returning guys to the biggest addition, Kyle Lowry.

Speaking of Lowry though, there is a bit of recent news surrounding the two former Miami Heat pieces it took to get him there. On former Heat first rounder, Precious Achiuwa, the Miami Heat Lifer, one Goran Dragic, had this to say.

It comes via NBA Reporter, Josh Lewenberg, of TSN.

"Dragic on Achiuwa: “If I’m honest, last year they put him a little bit into a box. Of course, it’s a rookie and everything. He just ran hard, set screens, roll, catch the lobs, rebound. But this year we can already see in preseason that he can do much more.”"

Interesting. Just because it’s that though, doesn’t mean there isn’t a bit of truth to it.

There are a few different ways to look at this scenario.

The Miami Heat took Precious Achiuwa, thinking he would slide right into the ‘Bam Mold’. It didn’t happen and that’s alright, it wasn’t the right fit.

The one the would most concern here is the one that might lead some to thinking that this is a shot at Erik Spoelstra, the Miami Heat coaching staff, or the organization.

It isn’t. It’s really a complex and more explanative way of saying that it was a bad fit.

The Miami Heat drafted Precious out of Memphis thinking that they could bring him up, develop, mold, and then place him into similar circumstances as Bam Adebayo with success. That wasn’t totally flawed thinking, as Precious, too, was a big-ish, skilled, defensive-capable, and athletic big who seemed to be built of the right stuff.

Sounds like Bam to me. None of that is untrue.

The thing about it though is this. Where Bam wanted to change the way you perceived his version of being a big, incorporating perimeter skill on both sides into the totality of playing big, Precious wants to use his size and big ability along the perimeter to dominate there.

To put it simply, where Bam wants to be big with a little perimeter stuff mixed in, Precious sees himself as more of a Kawhi Leonard-type and he might be.

There is nothing wrong with that and especially if he’s going to put the work in to show and prove. He seems to be off to a good start, so far, in Toronto.

That’s great for him and the Raptors. Most importantly though here for the Miami Heat, it wasn’t totally about them with what might have been his, perceived, lack of development.

Now, if you could just keep him and Dragic from mauling you when you play them, that’s the only question that remains.