By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
During the summer of 2023 and a few months before he announced his retirement from basketball, NBA veteran guard Goran Dragic had multiple offers to join a EuroLeague club and potentially finish his career in Europe.
One of those offers was by Partizan Belgrade. While Dragic was quite interested in signing with the Serbian powerhouse, he had to turn them down.
“I was in contact with Partizan. You can’t lie to the fans and coaches and come and play on one leg,” Dragic said to the NBA Out of Bounds podcast. “They contacted me and I was honest. I simply couldn’t play at that level because of my knee, and my children live in Miami… I didn’t even think about it that way, but if I was healthy I would definitely like it. Partizan is my club, I’ve always supported them and that would be very nice.”
Dragic ultimately decided to officially hang his shoes in December 2023 amid persistent issues with his knee. The Slovenian legend didn’t get the chance to spent one more season in Europe after he left Olimpija Ljubljana for the NBA in 2008.
“There was a chance in my head. To be honest, I would like to play for another 20 years, but that’s not possible,” Dragic explained. “I had knee problems and the doctor told me that if I want to continue running after my children, I have to stop playing basketball. I didn’t finish my career my way, I was forced to and that was hard. I had to stop and that’s it. I wanted to go back to Europe and play for a year or two, but that couldn’t happen.”
Dragic played in the NBA for 15 straight years, being a prominent member of the Phoenix Suns and the Miami Heat. With the latter, he reached the NBA Finals of 2020, averaging a playoffs career-high 19.1 points, 4.4 assists and 4.1 rebounds during the Bubble tournament.