Bogdan Bogdanović (basketball)

Early years

Bogdanović began playing organized basketball with KK Zvezdara, a club in Belgrade. In April 2008, he moved on to KK Žitko Basket (then known as Alimenti Basket), also from Belgrade. With Žitko he was part of the team that in April 2010 earned third place in the 2009–10 Serbian junior league at the final eight tournament in Vršac, after beating Partizan Belgrade juniors in the quarterfinal, losing 89-86 to Hemofarm juniors in the semifinal and beating FMP Železnik junior team 82-76 in the third place game.

A few weeks later in May 2010, together with another Žitko player Luka Pajković, Bogdanović got attached to FMP's junior team featuring Nenad Miljenović, Stefan Popovski-Turanjanin, Nemanja Bezbradica, Nikola Janković, and Nikola Silađi for the Nike International Junior Tournament (NIJT) in Paris where the Železnik juniors were defending their club's double title from previous two years. They were drawn in one of two round-robin groups at the tournament, alongside KK Split, Treviso, and Málaga. After beating Treviso and Split, FMP required a win over Málaga juniors to win their group and make the final; with precisely Bogdanović making the difference with an off-balance buzzer-beater for a 79-78 final score, two of his 21 points on the day alongside 6 rebounds. In the final game FMP took on INSEP and lost 73–83 with Bogdanović having an outing to forget due to the mid-game injury that forced him to leave the contest.

Partizan Belgrade

In September 2010, 18-year-old Bogdanović signed his first professional contract with Partizan Belgrade. Initially, in his first two seasons with the crno-beli, under head coach Vlada Jovanović, Bogdanović didn't play much.

With the summer 2012 return of head coach Duško Vujošević to Partizan, 20-year-old Bogdanović began to see increased minutes. After Anđušić's departure in December 2012, his role in the team stabilized even more. The 2012–13 season saw him make his EuroLeague debut with the team, averaging 5 points per game and 1.8 rebounds per game over 6 appearances.

2013–14 season

After being invited to play for the Serbian national team in the summer of 2013, he saw increased trust of coach Vujošević, which reflected on his minutes in the 2013–14 season, and a bigger role in the team.

In the EuroLeague game victory over CSKA Moscow in Belgrade, Bogdanović scored a career-high 27 points, shooting 10 for 16 from the field. Shortly after the game, he was praised by Serbian national team selector Aleksandar Đorđević, as being one of the most promising young European players.

In a February ABA League away game versus Cibona, Bogdanović scored a career-high 32 points, also adding 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Over 23 games in the EuroLeague, he averaged 14.8 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game, all career-highs. In April 2014, along with his teammate Joffrey Lauvergne, he was selected for the ideal team of the ABA League.

In May 2014, he was voted the EuroLeague Rising Star of the season, by the head coaches of 24 EuroLeague teams.

Partizan finished the season by winning its 13th consecutive Serbian League title, after once again defeating their archrivals, Red Star Belgrade, 3-1 in the league's finals series. Bogdanović exploded in the finals series, averaging 30.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game. For such a performance, he was named the league's Finals MVP.

Following Bogdanović's summer 2014 transfer from Partizan to Fenerbahce, the timing of the player's decision to leave the club was criticized by Partizan's head coach, Vujošević, who claimed that Bogdanović thus broke the verbal agreement the coach had struck in 2012 with him, his agent Aleksandar Rašković, and his parents; an agreement that he was to immediately be put into first team's rotation in 2012, and that in return he would stay in the team for three more seasons, from that point on. Instead, Bogdanović left the club after two years, following Partizan's failure to qualify for the next season's EuroLeague.

Fenerbahçe

On 11 July 2014, Bogdanović officially signed a four-year contract, containing opt-out clauses after the second and third seasons, with the Turkish team Fenerbahçe. Over four years, Bogdanović is slated to make €3.5 million euros net income, while Partizan also received a €1.3 million euros buyout from Fenerbahçe, as the player was still under contract with the Belgrade club.

2014–15 season

Even though Bogdanović was a newcomer in the team, head coach Željko Obradović gave him a significant amount of minutes and a starter role. With the beginning of the 2014–15 season, he struggled in shooting and consistency. On November 15, in a 93–86 win over FC Bayern Munich, he scored 18 points and added 7 assists, his best game since coming to the new team. Over 10 games in the first phase of the EuroLeague, he averaged 10.4 points and 3.4 assists per game. On March 20, Bogdanović set a season-high of 25 points, and added 4 assists, in a 98–77 win over Emporio Armani Milano. For such a performance, he was named the EuroLeague MVP of the Round, with a performance index rating of 32. On March 26, in a game against Unicaja Málaga, he scored a 20-meter distance buzzer beater at the end of the second quarter. After good showings in the Top 16, he struggled in shooting in the quarter-final playoff series against Maccabi Tel Aviv, averaging 8 points on 25% shooting from the field. Eventually, Fenerbahçe won the EuroLeague playoff series, and advanced to the 2015 Euroleague Final Four, the first in the club's history.

On May 7, he was voted the EuroLeague Rising Star for the second season in a row, becoming only the second player, after Nikola Mirotić, to win the award twice. On May 15, 2015, however, his team lost in the EuroLeague semifinal game to Real Madrid, by a score of 87–96. Eventually, Fenerbahçe finished in 4th place in the EuroLeague, after losing in the third-place game to CSKA Moscow, by a score of 80–86. Over the season, in 29 EuroLeague games, Bogdanović averaged 10.6 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. Also, in 36 games of the Turkish League, he averaged 11.5 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 2.4 assists.

2015–16 season

Throughout his second season with the team, Bogdanović continued with his good performances, becoming one of the team's leaders. Occasionally, in the late phases of the games, he also had the ball in his hands. Fenerbahçe won the Turkish Cup, with a 67–65 win over Darüşşafaka, with Bogdanović being named the Cup MVP. Fenerbahçe also reached the final game of the 2016 Euroleague Final Four, but fell short of winning the EuroLeague championship, after an overtime 96–101 loss to CSKA Moscow. Over 28 EuroLeague games, he averaged 11.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 3 assists per game. At the end of the season, Fenerbahçe won the Tukish League championship.

2016–17 season

On October 26, 2016, in a EuroLeague game against Žalgiris Kaunas, Bogdanović sprained his right ankle; at first it was estimated that he will need two to three weeks of recovery time, but recovery didn't seem to go as expected as he hasn't played until January 2017. On January 6, 2017, he returned on the court, in a game against Milano.

NBA

On June 26, 2014, Bogdanović was selected by the Phoenix Suns with the 27th overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft. On June 23, 2016, Bogdanović would have his draft rights traded to the Sacramento Kings alongside the 13th and 28th picks of the 2016 NBA draft (Georgios Papagiannis and Skal Labissière, respectively) and the Detroit Pistons' 2020 second round pick to the Sacramento Kings for the 8th pick of the 2016 NBA draft, which was Marquese Chriss.

Youth

Bogdanović's play with Žitko got him an invitation to training camp ahead of the 2009 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship in France, however the player who was about to turn 17 years of age, quickly got cut by head coach Vlada Jovanović.

Next year, in the summer of 2010, Bogdanović got picked by head coach Jovanović for the following European under-18 Championship, where Serbia came in fourth.

The following year, Bogdanović, then at the time with Partizan at the club level, went up in an age group, and played for Serbia's Under-19 national team under head coach Dejan Mijatović, at the 2011 FIBA Under-19 World Championship in Latvia. Playing alongside Aleksandar Cvetković, Đorđe Drenovac, Luka Mitrović, Nemanja Dangubić, and Nemanja Bešović, Bogdanović was a part of the team that got a silver medal, after losing the final to the Jonas Valančiūnas-led Lithuanian team. Bogdanović averaged 8.9 points and 5 rebounds per game.

Senior

At the FIBA EuroBasket 2013 in Slovenia, Bogdanović represented the senior Serbian national team, averaging 9.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2 assists per game.

Bogdanović was a member of the Serbian national basketball team that won the silver medal at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, under head coach Aleksandar Đorđević. He emerged in the knockout phase against Greece, Brazil, and France, and ended the tournament with averages of 12 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game, on 47% shooting.

In the late phase of the pre-tournament friendly games for the EuroBasket 2015, Serbian team head coach Đorđević, put him on the bench, due to his problems with a repeated back injury. Despite that, he was named to the 12-man roster that represented Serbia at the EuroBasket. Throughout the first phase of the tournament, playing with pain injections, he saw limited minutes, and his production slightly decreased from the previous summer. Despite that, Serbia dominated in the tournament's toughest group, Group B, with a 5-0 record, and then eliminated Finland and Czech Republic in the round of 16 and quarterfinal games, respectively. However, they were stopped in the semifinal game by Lithuania, with a score of 67–64, and eventually lost to the tournament's host team, France, in the bronze-medal game, with a score of 81–68. Over 9 tournament games, Bogdanović finished with averages of 8.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game, on 39.7% shooting from the field, and 27.1% shooting from the three-point line.

Career statistics

Note: The EuroLeague is not the only competition in which the player participated for the team during the season. He also played in domestic competition, and regional competition if applicable.

Personal life

Bogdanović was born to parents Dragan and Koviljka. In addition to basketball, he is also a fan of the World of Warcraft series of video games. On April 10, 2016, fans of the Fenerbahçe Men's Basketball Team would name a star after Bogdan Bogdanović