Tuesday's second-half throttling of the Slovenian national squad by Team USA during the quarterfinals of the FIBA World Cup tournament might be considered a swell outcome for Suns fans.
Even though they probably aren't thrilled that Goran Dragic and his buddies absorbed this 43-point defeat, they can rest easy knowing "The Dragon" made it through this event without apparent physical injury.
And it gets better.
Between World Cup games in Spain, an interview with Dragic -- roughly translated from the Slovenian website siol.net -- produced the following comment regarding his status in Phoenix:
"Got a very interesting situation with the club," said Dragic, who has a player option after this coming season. "Guess I'll break the contract and sign a new one. As I spoke (to the Suns), I immediately during the first week, when the market opens, sign and I will therefore be calm."
This certainly sounds as if Goran -- who must opt out next summer to re-sign with the Suns for anything close to the market value he established with last season's uprising -- intends to stick around.
He also expects the Suns, who currently are in a much different predicament with restricted-free-agent guard Eric Bledsoe, to offer him something at least in the neighborhood of what he's worth. Dragic will be paid $7.5 million this season, the same amount he's expected to opt out of before the 2015-16 campaign.
Anyway, this confirms the widespread notion Dragic and the Suns really like each other and want this relationship to continue.
Team Bledsoe, on the other hand, have been relatively quiet on the more-likely-by-the-day prospect of Bledsoe's acceptance of a qualifying offer of $3.7 million for this season -- with unrestricted free agency to follow next summer -- instead of embracing the four-year, $48 million offer the team reportedly has presented.
Bledsoe and superstar pal LeBron James did provide some fodder last week with Instagram posts; LeBron, in particular, has been interpreted as strongly suggesting the Suns open up the vault. His post included the expression "break bread," which could be interpreted as encouraging words for both parties to sit down over a fine meal and possibly negotiate, or more likely, a recommendation that the Suns should ante up the bread that Bledsoe is seeking.
By the way, if something unexpected occurs and Bledsoe isn't suiting up for the Suns this season, having his roster spot filled by Zoran Dragic, Goran's brother and Slovenian national teammate, might be a contested longshot.
Although it has been reported the Suns might be interested in rewarding Zoran's strong World Cup performance by bringing him to the NBA, the younger Dragic has another year remaining on his deal with Unicaja Malaga.
The Suns could pitch in $600,000 in a buyout move that would leave Zoran to pick up the balance.
This could happen, but even without Bledsoe, the Suns' current stockpile of perimeter players makes having two Dragic brothers more doable a year from now.
It also should be pointed out there are several NBA teams with a bigger need for Zoran right now. According to RealGM.com, he has drawn interest from the Heat, Magic, Mavericks and Spurs.
He has a buyout deadline of October 5.
