The Miami Heat are idle right now, sitting in wait. While their next move is one that has yet to be revealed, it’s safe to wonder, not only, which direction they will go in but if they even know yet what said move might be.
While they haven’t found quite the amount of success they have been looking for on a big-name acquisition, one of their former players is enjoying a bit of success on the summer National Team circuit.
Playing in an exhibition game being described as a “prep game” for the upcoming Eurobasket and FIBA World Cup, Slovenia would take on Turkey’s National Basketball team. In a game that, seemingly, came down to the wire, Slovenia would walk away with the victory.
While they feature the likes of one of the NBA’s brightest players, young and generally when thinking about Luka Doncic, it was his older countryman, the former “biggest name” of Slovenia, and a former Miami Heat great, Goran Dragic, that was the star of the show for them.
Former Miami Heat guard, Goran Dragic, isn’t the best player on his Slovenian National Team anymore, Luka Doncic is. But ‘The Dragon’ can still spit fire.
Allowing their Turkish competition, led by NBA players Furkan Korkmaz of the Philadelphia 76ers, Cedi Osman of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Alperen Sengun of the Houston Rockets, to tie the ball game up late in regulation, they would push Slovenia to overtime.
It was in that overtime that this happened.
Give us overtime, our captain will give you this 🐲🔥🇸🇮.@Goran_Dragic@TelemachSi @IFeelSloveniaSi pic.twitter.com/9uR2UuHGiC
— Košarkarska zveza SIovenije (@kzs_si) August 12, 2022
Nailing a shot that would be the game-winner, after a missed Korkmaz attempt for the win, Dragic would lead Slovenia in scoring with 28 points. Luka Doncic would finish with 23 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists in 27 minutes.
For Turkey’s NBA guys, Korkmaz would drop in 33 points on the back of five made threes, while Cedi Osman would give 24 points, and all while Alperen Sengun delivered 19 points and nine rebounds.
As far as Dragic and his NBA presence, the former Miami Heat player had a pretty decent finish to his year last season after the early turmoil in Toronto. Averaging just 7.3 points, 4.8 assists, and 3.2 rebounds across 16 appearances for Brooklyn last season, that doesn’t really describe his impact.
Upping his scoring in the playoffs for them, though a short four games worth of work, that’s where his true value really shined still as a microwave type scorer with the given touches. Though it wasn’t unfair to hold out a little hope for a Miami Heat reunion this offseason, The Dragon will play his pro ball in Chicago in this coming season.
You hate to see it for another club but you have to, generally, love to see the guy do well. And for his Slovenian National Team in their most recent win over Turkey, The Dragon was breathing fire!