Bogdan Bogdanovic always said he wanted to win.
He said it in Salt Lake City the night he first revealed some uncertainty about his future in Sacramento before a preseason game against the Utah Jazz in October 2019. He said it again after leaving the Kings to sign with the Atlanta Hawks in November.
The seemingly endless quest for a winning culture continues after 15 consecutive losing seasons in Sacramento, but Bogdanovic has finally found it in his first season in Atlanta. The 28-year-old guard is thriving in his first career postseason appearance for the Hawks, who lead the Philadelphia 76ers 1-0 going into Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Tuesday at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
Bogdanovic had 21 points, five assists and four rebounds in a surprising 128-124 victory over the 76ers on Sunday. He raised an index finger to his lips to shush the crowd after delivering a 3-point dagger in the final minute, helping the Hawks win Game 1 in Philadelphia after defeating the New York Knicks 4-1 in a first-round series.
“I almost stuck my finger in my nose,” Bogdanovic joked after the game. “My nose is big.”
Winning is fun — and possible — as Bogdanovic has found since leaving Sacramento. The Kings lost the Serbian sharpshooter via restricted free agency when they declined to match a four-year, $72 million offer from the Hawks after a sign-and-trade deal with the Milwaukee Bucks fell apart.
Bogdanovic is enjoying the best season of his career despite experiencing some early struggles and suffering an avulsion fracture in his right knee in January. He is averaging career highs of 16.4 points, 3.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals along with 3.3 assists per game. He is shooting career bests of 47.3% from the field, 43.8% from 3-point range and 90.9% at the free-throw line.
Bogdanovic was an NBA All-Rookie Second Team Selection and the NBA Rising Stars Challenge MVP in 2018, but the Kings went 97-139 in his three seasons in Sacramento. That was difficult for Bogdanovic, who won four Serbian League titles with Partizan from 2011-14 and a EuroLeague championship with Fenerbahce in 2017 before coming to the NBA.
“My toughest part was the first year in (Sacramento) when I (felt) like we were giving up at the beginning of the year,” Bogdanovic recently told The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner. “I was coming from the championship team in the EuroLeague. I was pretty motivated. I was scared for myself that I lost that competitiveness in myself. The wins were driving me all of the time. My career was, I played on Partizan, a winning team (in Serbia). Fenerbahce, they were all about wins. They were winning games and winning the whole thing. Then coming to Sac that first year and not even knowing what the team goal was for that year was the hardest challenge for me.”
WINNING CULTURE
That’s a challenge the Kings are still struggling with as coach Luke Walton and general manager Monte McNair work to establish the elusive winning culture in Sacramento. The Kings haven’t made the playoffs since 2006, matching the longest postseason drought in NBA history.
The Kings thought they had assembled a team that could reach the playoffs after adding Harrison Barnes to a group that included De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Bogdanovic and Marvin Bagley III, but that hasn’t happened yet. Barnes, who won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015, said reaching the postseason will be a critical step for the Kings.
“There’s work to do,” Barnes said. “Building a culture doesn’t happen overnight. … It’s tough when you don’t make the playoffs. Guys can only get so far without actually experiencing a .500 season, without actually experiencing that playoff atmosphere, without experiencing that moment where your team is in that situation and you fall short, but then collectively you’re all like, ‘OK, we want to take that next level.’ We want to get out of the first round or the second round or whatever that may be.
“For us, we really just have to be tied in and committed to that. Everything that a player wants to accomplish in this league is tied to winning. You want to accomplish stats? You want to be respected among your peers? You want to be regarded as a top player at your position? Just in the league in general, all those things are tied with winning. I think as a group, collectively, when that is the most important focus and when we want to get to that point, it will happen. We have the talent to do it. It’s just a matter of do we have the focus, the maturity and the mentality?”
ECOSYSTEM OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Barnes said the Kings have to continue to establish an “ecosystem of accountability,” saying: “There can’t be anymore my-bads.”
“There are definitely steps that are happening to make that happen, but as all of you know, the reality is that we are in a playoff drought,” Barnes said. “This franchise has probably heard a lot of people like myself who have come up here and said these exact same things, and seen more or less the same. So I’m not going to say everything has changed overnight, because it hasn’t, but I think steps are being taken to have a winning culture, to have an ecosystem of accountability, and hopefully that will continue to grow.”
The Hawks decided they had to make a coaching change after going 14-20 to start the season. They have responded by going 32-12 under interim coach Nate McMillan after former coach Loyd Pierce was fired March 1.
The Kings decided not to make a coaching change, choosing instead to let Walton continue the work he started when he was hired by former general manager Vlade Divac in April 2019. While Pierce reportedly had a strained relationship with Hawks point guard Trae Young, a number of Kings players spoke out in support of Walton, including Fox, Barnes and rookie Tyrese Haliburton.
Walton was asked what their support meant to him as he works to establish a winning culture in Sacramento.
“It’s a culture of togetherness,” he said. “We have each other’s backs. Nobody gets all the credit. Nobody gets all the blame. We’re in it together and together we’re going to start winning again.”
