Bojan Bogdanovic isn’t new to this.
For the majority of his NBA career, he has been a top-two option on offense. Joining a rebuilding Detroit Pistons team toward the end of September didn’t require a shift in mindset for him, even if his new team is unlikely to enjoy the successes of his previous stops. He has long had the green light on offense and hasn’t shied away from it. Why would he need to change?
Bogdanovic already has a short highlight reel of big shots in Detroit. Four of them came in the final four minutes of his 33-point night against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. The Pistons lost 118-113, but Bogdanovic did his best to win them the game by scoring 13 points in the final four minutes — including a four-point play with 1:23 on the clock that cut the deficit to one.
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“Whenever I step on the court, I want to win the game,” Bogdanovic said after the loss. “That’s the case even here, I know that we are a young team, but it’s the same situation that I had all my career with the Jazz, Pacers, or whatever. I still want to win the game and every single player on the court is doing the same and trying to play hard.”
It has been a few years since the Pistons had a veteran who can consistently swing games like Bogdanovic can. He isn’t doing anything new. But it’s new for Detroit.
Through five games, Bogdanovic hasn’t just been the Pistons’ best offensive player. He’s been one of the NBA’s best. At the end of Wednesday’s slate of games, Bogdanovic led the league in made 3-pointers with 21. Among players with at least 35 3-point attempts, his 51.2% success rate behind the arc is No. 1. Whether launching open 3-pointers created by his teammates or engineering his own, Bogdanovic has been nearly automatic from outside.
His efficiency has placed him among the NBA’s elite. Of the 35 players with at least 70 shot attempts this season. Bogdanovic is third in overall field goal percentage (53.3%) — behind only Jayson Tatum and Ja Morant. His true shooting percentage of 70.3% ranks fourth among players with at least three games played and at least 30 minutes of average playing time.
And he has done more than his part to buoy a Pistons offense that has otherwise struggled to keep its head above water thus far. Bogdanovic is leading the Pistons with 23.3 points per game and has also been one of their best organizers and talkers on defense. Even in this small sample size, it’s shaping up as his best season ever.
During his final three seasons with the Utah Jazz — his previous stop before Detroit — he was an efficient scorer, good for 20 points a night in a one-two punch alongside Donovan Mitchell. Before that, with Indiana, he shared the scoring load with Victor Oladipo for consecutive 48-win Pacers teams from 2017-19.
But in Detroit, he has embraced being a leader for a rebuilding franchise, and a mentor to a locker room filled with youngsters.
“I’ve learned a lot,” Cade Cunningham said Wednesday. “Learning his style of play, learning him, where he wants the ball, how to make it easier for him to get his spots and get in his spots. Just throughout, he’s very knowledgeable about the game and he shares his knowledge. He doesn’t hold it to himself, he makes sure all of us are on the same page. He talks to us a lot. It’s fun to play with a guy like that, has such as high IQ and cares about winning so much.”
That was on display Wednesday, late and early. He hit multiple big shots against the Hawks in the first half, with 16 points on nine shots in the first quarter to help Detroit cut a 12-point deficit to one at halftime. He always looks comfortable shooting the ball. Never hurried, he has been a calming figure on a Pistons team that has been too easily frazzled at times.
Trading for Bogdanovic could end up being one of general manager Troy Weaver’s best moves, considering he only gave up one rotation player (Kelly Olynyk) exchanged for his expiring contract. As Pistons coach Dwane Casey said before Wednesday’s game, this team is “pouring concrete” to get out of this rebuild. Bogdanovic is showing he knows how to build the mold.
“Nobody celebrates when you pour concrete, but everybody’s there with pom-poms when the building is finished,” Casey said. “ We’re pouring concrete right now, but there might be a hole we have to put our finger in one night and another hole we have to put our finger in the next night. But when that concrete is finished, we can hone in on one issue we have.”