Bogdan Bogdanovic is in the midst of attempting to do something that’s only been done by one player in Sacramento Kings franchise history.
As the 2018-19 NBA season inches closer and closer to the halfway point of the 82-game schedule, now seems like a good time to discuss Bogdan Bogdanovic‘s campaign for Sixth Man of the Year.
The 26-year-old Serb is in his second season with the Sacramento Kings, and as the team as a whole is thriving, so is its backup shooting guard, who on the season is averaging 15.7 points, 3.9 assists and 3.4 rebounds in 28.0 minutes per game while shooting 43.3 percent from the floor, 36.9 percent from 3 and 80.5 percent from the line.
Prior to this season, Bogdanovic started in 53 games last year for the Kings. He averaged 11.8 points a night, shot 39.2 percent from 3 and played all but four games that season. He was widely regarded as Sacramento’s best player, but due to an unfortunate injury, his timeline hit a road block and he now finds himself backing up his former backup, Buddy Hield.
The two marksmen came into the season with their roles flipped, and quite frankly, it might have been the best thing that has happened to them.
With Hield being the superior all-around shooter (no disrespect to Bogdan), combined with his activity off the ball, the Kings are able to generate a higher percentage of looks and get more flow out of their offense.
That’s not to say that the Kings wouldn’t still be the team they are if you swapped Buddy and Bogdan in the starting lineup, however, because they would. It’s just a mesh thing. Hield meshes better with De’Aaron Fox‘s play style than Bogdanovic does.
Bogdanovic off the bench works as well as it does because of his versatility. Where Hield edges him in shooting and spacing the floor, Bogdanovic’s ability to playmake and handle more responsibility as a ball-handler allows him to play the role of the team’s sixth man.
Bogdanovic is best suited in his role because he can consistently put the ball on the floor. Head coach Dave Joerger doesn’t have to run him off screens or run plays for him to get open because Bogdan can create offense on his own. That’s not to say Hield can’t, but Bogdanovic is just slightly better and more comfortable at it than he is.
Now, if we remove the five games he played as a starter and just strictly examine his numbers as a reserve, Bogdanovic is averaging 16.2 points, 3.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds in 27.5 minutes per game with shooting splits of .450/.377/.804.
If we head over to NBA.com and compare him to the rest of pool of bench guys — keep in mind, some of the players listed are regular starters, so their numbers will look inflated because of the few times they played off the bench — we see that he’s fourth in points per game (16.2), second in made 3-pointers (2.2 per game) and fifth in made field goals (6.0 per game).
He’s also scoring the second-most points on catch-and-shoot situations (5.8 per game) and the ninth-most points on pull-up jump shots (4.0 per game). As an extra bonus, he’s 11th in passes made (37.1 per game) and second in secondary assists (0.7 per game). He’s giving his ball club a little bit of everything.
Eight times this season he’s managed to score 20 or more points in a game. Only once did it happen when he was in the starting lineup, and in those eight games, the Kings went 5-3 against some formidable opponents.
In addition, every 20-point game he’s had so far has happened in 2018, five of which were in the month of December. Eight 20-point performances in one month for a bench player is pretty damn admirable. Also in that month, this happened:
https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1078526674264776704
Sorry to bring that up, Los Angeles Lakers fans.
If you needed any further proof the value Bogdanovic brings to the floor on a nightly basis, then look no further. He currently has the fourth-best net rating on the team with a +1.1, trailing starters De’Aaron Fox (+1.5), Nemanja Bjelica (+1.5) and Willie Cauley-Stein (+2.3). The team is also 10-5 when he scores 15 or more points in a game.
When you look at the Kings’ best and most used lineups, their second-most used lineup of Fox, Hield, Bogdan, Bjelica and Cauley-Stein has played a total of 101 minutes together (second-most) and is posting an offensive rating of 111.9 with a 104.8 defensive rating, which translates to a +7.2 net rating. In case you’re wondering, those marks would put them seventh in offensive rating, fifth in defensive rating and second in net rating across the rest of the league.
Lastly, it’s probably worth mentioning that Bogdanovic’s numbers aren’t the most eye-popping numbers around. That is, until you dig around through history and fiddle with Basketball-Reference’s player season finder.
There have been 10 players throughout NBA history that have averaged 15-3-3 (or better) stat lines while coming off the bench in 20 or more of their games. Bogdan Bogdanovic is one of them, as is Dennis Schroder of the Oklahoma City Thunder, who is also making his case for the Sixth Man of the Year award.
If Bogdanovic continues at the pace he’s at, he could join the five other players on the list that did it for 60+ games, and get this: Three of those seasons resulted in a 6MOY trophy (Detlef Schrempf in 1990-91 and 1991-92, and James Harden in 2011-12).
It would be an incredible feat for not only the Sacramento Kings franchise, but for Bogdanovic’s career to have his name go down in history next to those guys.
So as the year drags along, the race for the coveted Sixth Man of the Year award is only going to intensify. Guys like Derrick Rose, Domantas Sabonis and Montrezl Harrell have already formed strong cases early on. Now it’s up to Bogdanovic do the same and catch up with the rest of pack.