Suns: Checking In On Bogdan Bogdanovic At Eurobasket
Between Brandon Knight, Archie Goodwin, Sonny Weems and Devin Booker, the Phoenix Suns have plenty of players capable of playing the shooting guard position. There’s already a logjam at that position, but next summer, it might get even more crowded with the addition of Serbian guard Bogdan Bogdanovic.
As the 27th pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, Double Bogdan is adding to his professional basketball experience overseas for the time being. Until the Suns can get their hands on him, most likely for the 2016-17 season, fans will look to events like the 2015 Eurobasket competition to get an idea about what he brings to the table.
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Through six games at Eurobasket, Bogdanovic is averaging 8.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game for Team Serbia. He’s only shooting 39 percent from the floor, and has only made nine of his 31 three-point attempts (29 percent), but he’s converted 10 of his 12 attempts from the charity stripe.
Bogdanovic is averaging 20.2 minutes per game through Serbia’s first six games and has scored 10 points in each of his last two contests.
As of right now, Bogdanovic is still a raw overseas project. He’s not afraid to shoot the ball, and at 6’6″, he has the size and athleticism to play the 2-spot in the NBA. Currently playing for Fenerbahce in Turkey, Bogdanovic already has quite an impressive list of accomplishments to his name.
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Last summer, Bogdanovic was a part of the Serbian team that won the silver medal at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, averaging 12 points per game as the team’s third leading scorer. Double Bogdan is a two-time Euroleague Rising Star, a two-time Adriatic League champion, a two-time Serbian Cup champion, a four-time Serbian League champion and a one-time Serbian League Finals MVP.
Not bad for a 23-year-old.
On the surface, Bogdanovic’s stats at Eurobasket don’t quite add up to all his other awards and accolades. But take his mediocre numbers with a grain of salt, since this is a talented, deep Serbian team that is currently 6-0 so far at Eurobasket. In fact, it might be reassuring to Suns fans that Bogdanovic is so comfortable in a lesser role, since he’d be coming off the bench in the NBA.
We haven’t been able to learn as much about Bogdanovic from his play at Eurobasket, but the praise he earned during his breakout FIBA World Cup last summer is definitely worth bearing in mind moving forward:
Serbian teammate Vladimir Stimac on Suns draftee Bogdan Bogdanovic: "This guys is probably going to be a legend of Serbian basketball."
— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) September 10, 2014
The shots haven’t been falling at Eurobasket, and because of that, there just aren’t as many highlights to share from Bogdanovic’s limited minutes so far.
But in Team Serbia’s first game against heavyweight Spain, Bogdanovic was on the floor in the game’s final minutes and drilled a three with less than a minute to play, extending Serbia’s narrow four-point advantage to seven to put the game out of reach:
In the team’s third game against Iceland, Bogdanovic sort of flirted with a triple-double, stacking up nine points, seven rebounds and six assists in just 20 minutes.
The highlight reel plays have been few and far between so far, but the same passion and sweet shooting stroke that fans saw during the World Cup last summer is alive and well, even if he hasn’t done anything quite up to par with this at Eurobasket:
It’s unknown how Bogdanovic’s game will translate to the NBA, but at the very least, he looks like a confident bench scorer and capable perimeter shooter. Needless to say, the pressure is on for players like Archie Goodwin and Sonny Weems to prove their worth in 2015-16, because Double Bogdanovic is on the horizon.
Team Serbia’s next Eurobasket game is Wednesday, Sept. 16 in a quarterfinal game against the Czech Republic.
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