Zoran Dragic in Phoenix Was No Favor to Goran

While brothers playing in the NBA isn’t neccesarily a rare thing, having two brothers actually play for the same team for an extended period of time in the regular season is pretty rare.

Of course, you wouldn’t know that looking at the Phoenix Suns’ roster, since they’ve got not one but two sets of brothers on the team, but just ask Marcus and Markieff Morris and Goran and Zoran Dragic how valuable it is to have that sort of familiarity in the locker room.

“It’s always nice to have some family in town and on the same team,” Goran said. “For the past six, seven years we only see each other for the summer when we played together for the national team.”

Now the two brothers are together nearly every day, something the Morris twins would likely tell them is a dream come true, but the Dragic brothers’ situation came about quite differently from how the Morris twins ended up in Phoenix.

Believe it or not, 2013-2014 Most Improved Player Goran did not ask the Suns’ front office to consider bringing his brother aboard.

“To be honest I never mentioned my brother (to GM Ryan McDonough),” Goran said. “This summer when we played the World Cup, Ryan was in Barcelona and he called me. He wanted to take me to dinner and asked if I could bring my brother, so I didn’t know anything. I thought he was being polite.

“When we went to the restaurant he started asking questions to Zoran and I was like, what is going on? Then I heard all the rumors coming out on the internet, and I started thinking maybe this could happen.”

Zoran was equally surprised that his deal with the Suns actually panned out.

“I didn’t expect I was going to come here because I had a lot of other things going on, but I just said, look, if the chance is going to come, I’m going to accept it,” he said. “It came and I’m happy that it came and that I’m here.”

Now Zoran, three years younger than his brother, has to figure out how to adjust to the NBA game, which he admitted is faster and more physical than what he’s grown up playing in Europe.

“It’s a little bit tough, but I’m enjoying it,” he said. “It’s my first year, my rookie year, so it’s tough, especially when you’re coming from Europe. Everything is new for me, and I’m just learning.”

“I know it’s his first season, so that’s always tough, but he needs to adjust for a new system, new culture,” Goran said. “But I know his personality. He’s really tough, and he knows he needs to put a lot of hard work in. When the opportunity is going to come he needs to take advantage of that.”

A little sibling support is a good thing, as the Morris twins and Dragic brothers continue to prove. Apparently Phoenix is turning into the real city of brotherly love, and the Dragic parents have to be elated that they can focus their attentions on one game at a time rather than two.

“They’re happy,” Zoran laughed. “They’re only going to do one trip now. Before, they used to go all over, and now they just go to Phoenix. It’s nice for them to have both in the same city.”

It’s nice for the Suns, too, though the younger brother still has a long way to go to prove he’s worthy of the same sort of playing time as the elder brother. However much Zoran ends up playing, it’s certainly made Goran happy to have some family in the locker room. The Morris twins obviously feel the same way.

Now all that’s left to do is go out and find a way to bring Mason Plumlee aboard to keep big brother Miles company in the frontcourt.