Goran Dragic to play in Turkey - Vujacic probably won't join then

[by Kris SANTIAGO] - Merhaba! One of the fastest rising stars within the last weeks is probably Slovenian Goran Dragic.

The Ljublijana-born 1,93meters combo-guard played only two seasons in bigger competitions (ACB & Euroleague) before joining the Phoenix Suns in 2008 as a 22 year-old.

As a rookie, Dragic clinched only limited playing time behind the likes of Steve Nash and Leandrinho Barbosa and even in his second season, he did see only around 18 minutes per game off the bench, but was able to raise his numbers (from 4,5 to 7,9 points and from 2,0 to 2,9 assists) and to improve many aspects of his game. He worked on his shooting selection and his drives to the basket are looking more controlled now, while his passing skills making him a perfect all-around player on the offensive end.

His scoring output this season got him into some nice videos on the web:

But what Slovenian fans also want to see, is that Dragic repeats his defensive efforts in Turkey in August.

The Slovenians are facing a tough task with favorites U.S., the Americas-Champs from Brazil and arch-rivals Croatia in their group phase, but should be able to beat Tunisia as well as Iran to make it at least to the eight-finals if not climbing all the way to the top thanks to a great nucleus of players.

With a good preparation and his fellow Slovenian teammates like Erazem Lorbek, Jaka Lakovic, Bostjan Nachbar and Samo Udrih, Dragic could emerge to play an even bigger role in the team than before. A major concern for Slovenia is the health issues of players in the past year, as the country got into injury troubles during the European Championships in 2009 when players such as Goran Dragic had to sit out the rest of the tournament and they still managed to come in fourth overall.

Another big question that needs to be solved is the recent dispute between Dragic and Sasha Vujacic. Both are Slovenians in the NBA, both are playing guard and both are born of Serbian parents.

Take a look what happened in the NBA Western Finals:

Their issues may translate to a no-show of one of them in the national-team as it seems, that their on-court problems won't be scrambled any time soon.

Vujacic's reaction to raise arms after someone cursed about your parents seems pretty strange to me, so to me it was clearly an assault of Dragic, who did say some words in the direction of Vujacic, if you check out the video closely. Being called a "low human being" won't make the situation any better, so I would bet that either Vujacic or Dragic won't be part of Slovenia in Turkey for whatever official reason will be given by the federation.
The best thing for both players would be to squash their beef and to help Slovenia to advance as far as possible in the World Championships, but it probably needs someone close to both players to talk them into a truce and into the team. This particular person has less than two months to work things out.

Otherwise, Slovenia will be missing one NBA-caliber player on their roster…

I'm out like Slovenian trash talk.