Miami Heat point guard Goran Dragic has picked up his $19.2 million player option for next season, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.
Miami Heat guard Goran Dragic has picked up his $19.2M player option for the 2019-20 season, league sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 13, 2019
The veteran point guard signed a five-year, $90 million contract with the Heat in 2015 following a midseason trade from the Phoenix Suns. In his first full season in South Beach, Dragic helped the Heat to the second round of the playoffs, where they fell to the heavily-favored Toronto Raptors in seven games. It was an especially impressive postseason showing for Miami considering the team played without star big man Chris Bosh, who was diagnosed with blood clots in his lungs during the All-Star break and was never able to return to basketball.
Dragic actually enjoyed more individual success with the Heat over the next two seasons, notching career-highs of 20.8 points and 5.8 assists per game in the 2016-17 season and making his first All-Star game a year later. Miami has yet to win a playoff series since 2016, though, and Pat Riley reacted to his team's stunning second-half turnaround the following campaign by signing the likes of Hassan Whiteside, James Johnson, and Dion Waiters to expensive multi-year contracts, severely limiting the Heat's flexibility in free agency for years to come.
Dragic picking up his option, as expected, ensures Miami will go another summer without the ability to sign a marquee free agent outright. But with the contracts of he and Whiteside coming off the books after this season, the Heat will be able to more easily build around a young core of Josh Richardson, Bam Adebayo, and Justise Winslow come July 2020.
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