Meet Bojan Bogdanovic
Who is Bojan Bogdanovic?
Bojan Bogdanovic is a 6 ft 7 in, 226 pound forward hailing from Croatia. Like most European basketball players, Bogdanovic was with a professional club from his early teens, he played for several teams in Europe but found his best success with Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce where he spent 2011-2014. He was initially drafted in 2011 by the Miami Heat.
He did not go to the NBA immediately and spent 3 more seasons in Turkey before eventually signing with the Brooklyn Nets who had acquired his rights. He was 25 when he had his rookie season in Brooklyn. Bojan arrived as a part of the doomed Brooklyn teams that didn’t have the talent to really compete but also had no draft picks.
During his 3rd season with Brooklyn he was traded to Washington for a pick (which later became Jarrett Allen) but he ended up just being a rental in Washington as he would sign with the Indiana Pacers the following Summer.
At this point, he was well established as a solid pro who was a high-level shooter while also being competent defensively and having some off-the-bounce oomph. In his second year with the Pacers, his age 29 season, he leveled up. He effectively became the primary scoring option for a Pacers team that won 48 games and averaged 18 points per game on elite efficiency of 61.3%. (technically Victor Oladipo led the team in points per game with 18.8 but he only played in 36 games while Bojan played in 81)
Following that success, he signed with the Utah Jazz where he averaged 20 points per game with similar efficiency as the Jazz’s second-leading scorer behind Donovan Mitchell.
He’s been in Utah the last three seasons, he hasn’t broken 20 points per game since his first year in Utah but has remained a pivotal offensive cog for Jazz teams that were pretty good.
Bojan arrives in Detroit via trade where the Jazz continued to tear down their roster to the studs, the Pistons sent Kelly Olynyk, Saban Lee, and enough cash to pay Saban Lee in order to get Bojan in what effectively is a salary dump by the Jazz.
Bogdanovic is getting up in age, now 33, but he should still have gas in the tank.
Offense:
Bojan Bogdanovic is effectively the perfect complimentary offensive player. For starters, he is a genuinely elite shooter from deep, over the last 5 seasons he has shot 40.3% from the long line on high volume. Bogdanovic isn’t quite as trigger-happy as the league’s biggest gunslingers, but he shoots a ton.
After the shooting, he has real off-the-bounce zest in his game. He’s deadly with a pump-and-go when defenders close out too hard on his shooting, and can also just straight-up run pick and rolls or go isolation. He’s got quicks in tight spaces while being huge and physical. When people talk about players playing big or small, Bojan is an example of a guy who plays big. He will drive into guys, body them out of the way, and lay the ball in over them.
The only real hole in his offensive game is that he is not an effective passer with his career-high being just 2.1 per game and never posting an assist rate better than 10.1. For reference, Jerami Grant posted assist rates of 14.3% and 12.5% in his two seasons in Detroit. That said, he isn’t a black hole who doesn’t move the ball, he just isn’t an instinctive passer to set up teammates.
Off the ball, he won’t be mistaken for Rip Hamilton but he does a good job of finding space, whether beyond the arc or slipping in for back-door cuts.
Bogdanovic sits in the perfect space to compliment the Pistons’ young ball-handlers. His shooting and movement will create space, and his own creative abilities will help keep the load from getting too heavy. But he isn’t so good that he will be doing much to take away or generally get in the way of growth. He should start out of the gate and will very likely be the Pistons’ second-best player behind Cade Cunningham.
Second-best player??
The Pistons suck man. Bojan will make them suck less. He’s basically the best version of Saddiq and as of now Saddiq hasn’t reached that point, Ivey may be good but he’s a rookie so he probably won’t be there yet, none of the vets have anything approaching his resume. I’m honestly shocked that the Jazz couldn’t move him for some actual value, he’s a really good player.
Defense:
This is the good news that, based on my browsing of twitter and reddit, some will be surprised by. Bojan is a solid defensive player. No one will mistake him for a shut-down wing defender, but he uses his size effectively, competes most nights, and just like on offense he moves quickly in tight spaces better than a guy of his size should be able to. His combination of strength and quicks makes him tough to get by.
There is some concern of regression defensively. If age starts to catch up to him it will hurt his defense more than his offense and we will see how his effort levels hold up being on a bad team for the first time in like 6 years. Given that the Pistons won’t be that good and he’s in a contract year I could see a world where he slacks off defensively a bit to try and inflate his offensive numbers a bit
HOWEVA
Even if there is a slight regression on defense, he still fits cleanly into the classic archetype of player who has good size for their position and knows where to be that can still help the general integrity of your defensive scheme, even if he isn’t contributing a ton as an individual defender.
Intangibles:
Not a ton to go on here. There was an incident where he was briefly booted from the Croatian national team for “disciplinary reasons” but that was all the way back in 2012 and he returned soon after that and has had a successful international team with the national team. Other than that, he seems to be a decent enough dude. I haven’t found a ton of evidence that he is some sort of locker-room leader or anything but no reports of him being an issue since he arrived in the NBA. Given the Pistons’ youth he will likely take some sort of leadership role here so we will see how that goes as it will be a new experience for him.
Upshot for the rest of the roster:
Bojan should start right away and answers most of the questions around the 4 spot. Livers, Bagley, and Knox will compete for the backup minutes but Bojan should have a tight grip on starting minutes. He also firmly brings the competition for Saddiq Bey that I think is needed as the Pistons now have another (and better) option for a shooting wing to keep pressure on Bey to perform.
Best Case Scenario:
Bogdanovic immediately fits in seamlessly on the court as the tertiary scoring option the Pistons need and off the court as the positive veteran presence. He is part of a Pistons team that surprises and sneaks into the play-in, everything is good in Detroit and the Pistons keep him around for the future. He’s such a nice fit with the team that he eventually evolves into the old guy who doesn’t really play but is on the team for the vibes and to occasionally step into games to hit a few threes.
Worst Case Scenario:
He’s lost a step, or two and generally looks washed. He shows minimal interest in working with the team as he is trying to play for another contract, the Pistons end up buying him out at the deadline just to get rid of him.
Verdict:
Bojan is not going to transform the roster. Even considering that this is an excellent pickup. As long as he doesn’t find an issue spending a season on a team that doesn’t figure to be very good he should be excellent. Given that the Jazz couldn’t get any real value from him I wouldn’t hold out much hope that the Pistons will flip him for anything meaningful at the deadline but that’s ok. As long as he doesn’t have a huge athletic dropoff from last season he should be a boon to the development of the Pistons’ young ball-handlers and the offense at large.
A lot of what you said sounds an awful lot like a more shooty less athletic version of Jerami Grant and he certainly was not always a smooth fit with Cade last season. Why will Bojan be different?
For one, I think that Jerami kind of had it in his head that he should be the guy, Bojan already got his time as a major contributor to good teams that Grant was chasing (and hopefully will get in Portland). Grant wasn’t a problem or anything and by all accounts was an excellent professional and teammate last season but on the court it was, at times, a bit awkward because he clearly wanted to make sure he got his in a way that I’d guess Bojan isn’t going to be forced onto promotional material or end up on any murals as the team tries to convince a desperate fanbase that he’s actually a star when he isn’t. Bojan will show up, everyone will know he’s a really good complimentary player and that’s what he will be.
More importantly, Bojan is on another level as a shooter. Grant could shoot, but Bojan is elite from deep. This means that even if Bojan spends the season trying to shoot his way to one more big contract, it will be more beneficial than Grant because Bojan will still be providing far more space for his teammates to operate in.
That said, yes, there is a chance that some of the awkwardness of Grant will be here as Bojan is in the mold of a “good offensive player who doesn’t pass good” which will be something worth monitoring early in the season.