By Dionysis Aravantinos / info@eurohoops.net
Every kid must have a role model. And Bogdan Bogdanovic was a product of the Dream Team generation. Born on the 18th of August 1992, just ten days after the Olympics that changed basketball forever, the Serbian rookie of Sacramento Kings grew up in a world where playing in the NBA was not impossible, even if you were born at Belgrade.
Hell, especially if you are born in Belgrade, your goal and not just your dream is to play in the NBA. And while the Serbs won the gold medal in the World Championship of 2002 at Indianapolis, when Bogdan was 10 years old, his idol was not Peja Stojakovic or Vlade Divac, his current “bosses” at the Kings. “He loves Kobe a lot and has looked up to him,” confirmes Nemanja Besovic, his former teammate at Partizan, a 7ft2 center who currently plays in Qatar.
“When we were kids, we played a lot of games against each other. He played for Zitko Basket, a small team in Serbia and I played for FMP Zeleznik, the team which was first in the junior category, in Europe”, remembers Strahinja Mladenovic, currently a member of Serbian club KK Sloga, who has witnessed first hand the “mamba mentality” of young Bogdan. “I remember the game where he scored 43 points (!) against my team. From that moment, I knew that the sky was the limit for him. After that, he joined my team and played with us in the EuroLeague junior tournament in Paris. We had lost in the final, but he had played well,” Mladenovic says about his first impressions of Bogdan. “As a person, he is a perfect man, but as a player, he is a killer,” Mladenovic agrees.
Bogdanovic scored 43 points for Zitko Basket and beat FMP in the third-place game of the Serbian junior league back in the April of 2010. He was added to the FMP roster and competed in the EuroLeague junior tournament in the practice court of Palais De Bercy. Just a few meters away, on the main court, his future destiny was waiting for him.
The Partizan school
Bogdanovic’s shining moment in Paris was an off-balance buzzer-beater for a 79-78 win over Malaga. In total, he scored 21 points. In the final, he was injured and INSEP, the illustrious French sports Academy beat FMP. Partizan was also in Paris.
The Cinderella of the EuroLeague Final Four was defeated in the semifinal after overtime by Greek powerhouse Olympiacos, which had a roster that included among others Milos Teodosic, Pat Beverley, Josh Childress (photo) and Linas Kleiza. Jan Vesely (photo) was playing for Partizan who would become a teammate of Bogdanovic not only in Belgrade but years later in Istanbul, as both signed for Fenerbahce.
While the top European teams were wealthy enough in order to sign big name players, Partizan had to produce them. And in the summer of 2010, Bogdan Bogdanovic signed his first professional contract with the club. “He was always working hard, patiently waiting for his chance to arrive,” Besovic says, “which finally came when coach Vujosevic came back to Partizan. Bogdan took advantage of it.”
Coach Dule Vujosevic is an iconic figure for Partizan and would make Bobby Knight look like a choirboy. He had absolute control of his players’ life on and off the court and that’s why he thrived in Partizan when the team had a young roster and not seasoned veterans. After a decade in Partizan, he signed a contract with EuroLeague powerhouse CSKA Moscow also in the summer of 2010. He lasted just a few months, having to deal with a roster of stars.
“Coach Vujosevic always said that after every practice we had to score 10/10 free throws to finish off the session. Bogdan always stayed until he made 10/10, 15/15 or even 20/20”, says Petar Aranitovic who arrived in Partizan in 2013, one year after Dule’s return in 2012. “Most of the times I was good, and could score 10/10, but once I got my ninth shot, Bogdan would always come next to me, and I would eventually miss the last free-throw. We usually joked about that, how I always missed the final shot whenever I saw him”.
Despite the fact that the Partizan players had to make ten straight free-throws to finish off the practice session, Bogdan had some unique habits after each session. “He used to finish practice with a pass to himself off the side of the backboard; alley-oop,” Besovic remembers, while Mihajlo Andric, a Partizan player also at the time, shares how Bogdan would stay after practice to work more: “He stayed one or two hours after everyone to practice his shots. After every morning practice, he had to finish with ten deep three-pointers, off the dribble, step backs and behind screens.”
Bogdan would never get enough. “Every time we finished practice, in the morning or the evening, I always waited for Bogdan to say, “Pero come here to play one on one,” and I did,” Aranitovic adds.
Danilo Andjusic agrees with his old teammates and explains how Bogdan always wanted more. “Basketball was on his mind 24/7. There were countless of hours after practices, that we stayed, putting extra work together. I remember, sometimes after morning practices, there was time for just a quick meal and go right back to the second practice of the day. Sometimes, there wasn’t even time for that, as he was connecting practices, without a break,” he remembers.
“His focus was always on the highest level, and all he did was he talked and thought about basketball. Even when we were going out, to get lunch, or have fun, he was thinking and talking about the game. He was super passionate about it. That is when I realized that he has the right mindset and that he will be great one day. I think that work ethic he gained in that period, and the passion that drives him are the main reasons for his current success”.
With that kind of mentality, Vujosevic (photo) had found his favorite player on the team.
Despite being in his early 20s, Bogdanovic soon became the leader of the pack in Partizan. And according to Danilo Andjusic, who currently plays for Unics Kazan in Russia, the connection between Bogdanovic and Vujosevic – which included the infamous choking incident – was like a father-son relationship: “The thing that got stuck in my memory the most is Bogdan’s growth after the arrival of coach Vujoševic. He always had talent, there is no doubt about that, but in this particular period, he started learning about what ‘work ethic’ really means, and the things that were necessary for becoming a great player, as he is now. Coach Vujosevic looked at him as his child, and got into his head”.
And Bogdan gave everything back. “We had one crucial game, and on practice the day before the game Bogdan injured his ankle,” Petar Aranitovic and Miha Andric confirm. “Everyone thought that he wouldn’t play the next day, but not only did he play, he also scored 30 points. He had great confidence and an amazing character.”
King of Europe with Fenerbahce
In 2014, Bogdanovic left Partizan for Fenerbahce, he had already won the EuroLeague rising star trophy, but he didn’t change his habits. “Something I like to say about Bogdan is that he loves basketball,” says former Celtic and Fenerbahce’s Italian star Gigi Datome. “Usually, I stay after practice to work on my shots and so on. Sometimes, however, even after my workouts, stretching and showering, I was heading to the parking lot, and I could see Bogdan playing one on one against the guys who were helping us on rebounding. Trying his moves and just having fun on the court.”
And that includes pain resistance. “When we played in Turkey against each other, he was just coming back from an injury,” remembers his former opponent and also a teammate in the Serbian national team Vladimir Stimac. “The next thing I see was a backward dunk. Fenerbahce won the titles, and so I had to be the one who needed to be silent and let him have fun.”
Gigi agrees: “Last year he was out with an ankle injury. He didn’t practice for more than one week, but we had a critical game in the EuroLeague for our standings, and he asked the coach to play even though he hadn’t practiced. I have played a lot of years, but I had never seen something like that. A lot of players in his position would have thought about their health. He played, however, because he cared a lot about his team and teammate. I will never forget it, and that’s why I’m happy with all the success he had and is having. He deserves it not only because he is a great player, but because he stayed genuine despite all the different stages.”
Bogdanovic left Europe after winning not only the Turkish league but also the EuroLeague title with Fenerbahce. It was a historic feat since Fenerbahce became the first Turkish team ever to win the trophy. And while he was chasing something that was never done before, on the back of his mind the NBA was always there.
“When we first arrived at Fenerbahce together his handle wasn’t that great, but in those two years he improved it drastically… all to his credit because he put in the work”, says former EuroLeague champ with Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv and former Fenerbahce player Ricky Hickman. “I remember how we would always talk about the NBA players and the moves they made. Then, the following day after practice, he would be working on that same move we were discussing”.
Winning the Most Valuable Player award in the rising stars game of the NBA All-Star Game seems like a natural evolution. As Vladimir Stimac puts it eloquently: “I’m very happy that he won the MVP award in the Rising Stars Game, but most importantly that he is proving to everyone that his place is in the NBA. Two years ago, I had said that he was the next big thing coming, and now he shows that I did not make a mistake.”