When Bogdan Bogdanovic signed an offer sheet with the Atlanta Hawks in restricted free agency late in 2020, he was just a three-year NBA veteran joining a young group of Hawks looking to break through. Though then 28 years old with a long professional history in Europe, he was still at that point finding his footing in the NBA after his stint with the Sacramento Kings.
Fast forward four years, and Bogdanovic has seen both the highs and lows of the Hawks franchise in that time. That stretch has now, rather remarkably, left him as the oldest player on the roster this season following the departure of Wesley Matthews Sr. A certain level of leadership and responsibility now comes with that amount of seniority.
“Unbelievable,” Bogdanovic had to say at media about the situation. “I just talked about it with some friends. It just turns out one day you are the oldest. It is what it is. With that, the responsibility is there — bigger responsibility — so the experience with the [Serbian] national team will help me because I think I was the oldest there too this summer. It feels good. Nothing too bad about it. Can’t run away from it.”
But make no mistake, he’s not some locker room figurehead who won’t really see the floor. ‘Bogi’ can still ball out.
Prior to last season, Bogdanovic led a Serbian national team missing all world Nikola Jokic to the finals of the FIBA World Cup, where they succumbed to Dennis Schroder and the German national team.
This past summer, ‘Bogi’ and Serbia got their revenge on Germany in the 2024 Summer Olympics in France. After losing to Team USA in the semifinals, Serbia beat Germany in the third-place game to take home bronze.
“Last year, I came from the [FIBA] World Cup,” he remarked. “And I had a pretty good year with the team individually. And I’m looking forward to having a good team-oriented success this summer coming off the Olympics.”
“When you do something so many times, you get better at it,” he later continued. “To me, I believe [the] more high-level experiences, high-level basketball you have in your career, it’s better for you. I really believe that the national team, it helps me get in shape. It’s always easier to practice with your guys than individually.”
In 2023-24, he was on the shortlist for NBA Sixth Man of the Year after averaging a career-high 16.9 points per game on 30.4 minutes per game coming off the bench for 46 of his 79 game appearances. He took a career-high 8.1 three-point attempts per game and hit 37% of them, helping cement his place as one of the premier pure shooters in the NBA.
One playbook wrinkle I’ve seen Bogdanovic benefit from in the season plus one game under Quin Snyder and his full assistant staff has been the use of ‘Iverson cuts’. These are where ‘Bogi’ can screen or ghost a screen and cut across the court parallel to the free throw line to get off a shot off the catch.
Watch here as two players, including Bogdanovic’s man, jump out at Vit Krejci, leaving ‘Bogi’ free to cut and eventually shoot over a slow-to-react help man.
He’s of course not just a catch-and-shoot specialist, but rather a complete basketball player with the ability to play the 1 through 3 in a pinch. His passing and ball-handling are strong complementary skills. And with a lot of uncertainty at point guard behind Trae Young this season (and nominal backup point Kobe Bufkin on the shelf with an injury), he may be asked to fill in there for long stretches of game.
About the Sixth Man of the Year award, Bogdanovic was candid in saying he values it below team success. His response to the question was bluntly put, “if we don’t make the playoffs, or we don’t have team success, it doesn’t mean anything, honestly. I have so many awards over there, I don’t know what I’m going to do with that one.”
His offense is self-evident. But I want to focus on his defense which, at his advanced age and with his limited athleticism, often is unfairly panned. He’s certainly no lockdown defender at the point of attack, especially after the many knee issues he’s encountered in the playing career. But he’s a communicative supplemental defender who uses his smarts and length well.
Of course, with a new team around him and the usual first game jitters, Bogdanovic can fall prey to overhelping, like in the below instance.
“I talked to [coach Snyder] the other day, and I told him that even my coach from the national team noticed that my defense got better,” Bogdanovic said. “And I told him that we really worked on it. At the beginning of the year, you could see where I was closing out on guys, my hands were low. There’s always room for improvement.
“So a year and half ago when Quin [Snyder] came, the first thing he told me, ‘hey, I want you to be a better defender. I want you to close out on guys better, because there is a lot of room for your defense to improve.’
“Since then, we didn’t talk except [at] practices about details, but he was always pushing me, always making me play better defense. I was just doing that. And a year and half later, I feel like I got better. Again, 10,000 reps. Once you do that many times, it becomes a good habit. Thanks to coach for developing my game.”
Late in the 2022-23 season, the Hawks and Bogdanovic both cemented their long term commitment to each other with a contract extension agreement — one that extends to 2027 with the final season a club option.
Unfortunately, Bogdanovic is currently out of action with a right hamstring tendinopathy. But upon his return, he’ll certainly continue to be a major contributor for this Hawks team this season and likely beyond.
