PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas _ The day after Dwayne Wade called current Chicago Bulls teammate Rajon Rondo the best point guard he has played alongside, Goran Dragic decided the best response at Miami Heat training camp was a smile and a laugh.
"No," Dragic said of perhaps being bothered by such web fodder. "I mean, of course, he's his teammate."
As he began his first camp with his new team, Wade told CSN Chicago of Rondo, "He's the best point guard I've ever played with."
Wade, of course, also has played alongside Jason Williams, Gary Payton, Mario Chalmers, among others during his first 13 NBA seasons with the Heat, as well as Dragic, his backcourt partner of the past two seasons.
So simmering feud?
Nah, just a laid-back grin in keeping with the relaxed tone during this Heat camp at the Atlantis resort.
"I even texted him before training camp," Dragic said Thursday, "wishing him all the best for this season, 'be healthy,' and he texted me the same thing. Like all my teammates, I think they're the best."
Dragic acknowledged that Rondo is a truer point guard in the sense of almost always thinking pass first.
"I'm not like [John] Stockton or those guys," Dragic said. "I mean, I feel like I'm a combo guard. If you look at the past, I've played the two-guard, I've played the one-guard. So I can do both positions. I feel like this is an advantage to play two positions."
As it was, because of those scoring inclinations, Dragic often played off the ball while alongside Wade, an approach that no longer figures to be the case with Wade departing in free agency.
And if Wade finds greater comfort alongside Rondo, Dragic said he is comfortable with that, as well.
"Everyone is wired different," the Slovenian guard said of his playing approach. "I would say that the coaches back home, they raised me like this."
