Indiana Pacers: Bojan Bogdanovic is not who we thought he was

The Indiana Pacers are finding out that reputation and reality can be two different things. Free agent signee Bojan Bogdanovic is not the player many think he is, and that may be a good thing.

When the Indiana Pacers signed small forward Bojan Bogdanovic this past summer, they did so because they felt he filled a need following the trades of Paul George and C.J. Miles.

In general, Indiana needed a new starting small forward and they decided Bogdanovic was a good enough player and had enough untapped potential to fill that role.

More specifically, the Pacers were not a great outside shooting team to begin with, but after George and Miles were no longer part of the equation, the team suffered from a serious lack of quality shooters.

Kevin Pritchard made a move to fill that void by signing Bogdanovic, and all the talk surrounding Indiana’s new small forward revolved around his reputation as a great shooter.

It has previously been discussed in this space that Bogdanovic’s shooting prowess has been exaggerated; he’s a career 36.7 percent 3-point shooter, which is barely above the league average.

The other main part of Bojan Bogdanovic’s reputed profile is that he is a terrible defensive player, an assertion that can be quantified by some of the advanced metrics that now exist.

ESPN rated Bogdanovic’s defense 466th out of 468 NBA players in 2016-17 according to their Defensive Real Plus-Minus analysis. It’s fair to say that defense isn’t his forte.

There are players all around the league who have been similarly pigeonholed, but in Bogdanovic’s case, he has been placed in a box of “amazing shooter, awful defender.”

Now that Bojan Bogdanovic has been through training camp, preseason and five regular season games with the Pacers, deeper truths are starting to emerge regarding the 6’8″ forward from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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It seemed apparent from the beginning that Bogdanovic was overrated as a 3-point threat, and he’s done nothing so far to prove otherwise (shooting 20 percent from deep after five contests).

Regarding his play on the other side of the floor, his Defensive Rating is 314th out of 400 NBA players in the early going, so while there may be some improvement, it’s clear that Bogdanovic is never going to be a defensive stopper at this level.

None of this sounds very promising, but upon studying Bogdanovic’s game in more detail, some interesting things begin to surface.

He may not be the deadeye shooter that his reputation suggests, but Bogdanovic’s overall offensive game is underrated.

Bogdanovic is skilled at using the pump fake and driving around opposing players — he can then either create for others or score on layups or pull-up jumpers.

He is also adept as a passer and has good judgment when it comes to moving the ball and getting it to the correct spot on the floor.

Regarding his defensive struggles, there is even a bit of good news there. Not only has Bogdanovic appeared to show a modicum of improvement early in the season, but his outlook toward this deficiency is commendable.

Many times when a player is weak on the defensive end of the court, it is related to a certain degree of disinterest. There are exceptions, but most of the time those players are happy to accept this and don’t make any significant effort to evolve as defenders.

Bojan Bogdanovic isn’t blessed with great athleticism or lateral movement, but the effort is absolutely there when he plays defense — it’s obvious when looking at the game film.

Bogdanovic also understands that he is not a good defender, and he has stated that he spent a lot of time during the offseason working on it and trying to improve.

He will never be a great defensive player, but his continued effort and attitude toward defense make it likely that he will improve, even if only marginally due to his physical limitations.

Next: 2017-18 Week 2 NBA Power Rankings

Based on the broad stroke of reputation, Bojan Bogdanovic is not the player we thought he was. However, now that fans in Indiana have had a chance to see him up close, one could argue that there is more to him than we anticipated.

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