Bogdan Bogdanovic has shown that his summer performance for Serbia in the FIBA World Cup wasn’t an anomaly as he is putting up his best numbers yet for the Sacramento Kings this season.
Bogdanovic is on a career-high pace with 15.3 points, 4.8 assists and 1.6 steals per game while also grabbing 2.7 rebounds in 27.8 minutes a night while shooting 41.7 percent overall and 39.3 percent on 7.3 3-point attempts per game.
Playing for the Kings is not going to help his case, to be frank. Since the franchise moved to Sacramento in 1985, they have had just two major NBA award winners — Sixth Man of the Year Bobby Jackson in 2002-03 and Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans in 2009-10.
But Bogdanovic did get a lot of notice in China this summer and will be one of the top free agents in a thin market next summer, even as he is likely to be a restricted free agent.
Sacramento was limited to what they could offer the former late first-round pick on an extension, but did offer as much as they could — reportedly four years and $50 million, according to Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee.
Bogdanovic was taken 27th overall by the Phoenix Suns in 2014, but didn’t make his way to the NBA until 2017, a year after his rights were acquired by the Kings in a draft-night trade. He signed a three-year, $27 million contract in 2017. By deferring his NBA debut by three years, Bogdanovic was not subject to the rookie scale for first-round picks, per Dan Feldman of NBC Sports.
In the same 27.8 minutes per game in 2018-19, Bogdanovic averaged 14.1 points, 3.8 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 1.0 steals a night on a 41.8/36.0/82.7 shooting line, so the Serbian combo guard is certainly doing more for the Kings without getting more minutes with which to do so.