Chicago is being one of the disappointments of the season –perhaps the biggest–. After a good 2021-22 campaign, those from Illinois were expected to come to the present with renewed strength to fight to enter the playoffs directly. They are not getting it, since they are tenth in the Eastern Conference, 3.5 games from sixth place.
Posts to analyze the causes of the irregular performance of Billy Donovan’s boys, there are those who point to Nikola Vucevic as one of the causes; so much so that they see the center as a piece to move to improve. Questioned by this situation, Goran Dragic comes out in defense of his teammate to exculpate him and explain that the numbers that each player makes do not always correspond to his real contribution on the parquet.
“When you have to do what Chris Bosch did or Nikola Vucevic is doing, it is not possible to always meet previous expectations. There’s only one ball and three guys who can score. Each can score in different ways from a different position. At the end of the day, it should be all about winning. Miami knew how to understand it. A guy like Bosh sacrificing himself like that… That could be one of the most important keys to getting those championships,” the veteran point guard told Joe Cowley of The Chicago Sun-Times.
Criticism of Vucevic focuses on the decline in his statistics. In the current season he is averaging 16.6 points and 10.4 rebounds, his lowest marks since the 2017-18 season. Regarding what Dragic comments, it is true that his shooting volume has decreased, since he currently makes 13.2 pitches per night, while in 2020-21 he was 19.9. In his favor, it must be said that he is hitting 50.4% of the shots, a figure that he had not reached since the 2018-19 season.
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