Nets' Bojan Bogdanovic Shines in FIBA World Cup

For Brooklyn Nets fans, the FIBA World Cup may have slid under the radar with the Nets’ big names not participating, but one of the Nets’ offseason additions really shined throughout the tournament, and should have opened the eyes of Nets fans.

For Croatia, Bojan Bogdanovic was consistently their best player and helped lead them into the round of 16, where they fell to France 69-64. Bogdanovic has been one of the best players in the World Cup this season, and that should get the Nets, and their fan excited about what he can bring to the team next season.

FIBA.com

In the loss to France, Bogdanovic scored a game-high 27 points, which included a monster fourth quarter that he scored 14 points. He nearly single-handedly brought Croatia back from a 16-point deficit, as he hit a three-pointer to bring them to within two points, but missed a three-pointer that could have given his team the lead with under 30 seconds to go. Nonetheless it was a great game from Bogdanovic, who finished shooting 11 for 19 from the field.

For the entire tournament, Bogdanovic was impressive, averaging 21.2 points per game, while shooting 50% from the field, and 36.1 from the three-point line. With training camp about three weeks away, Bogdanovic will be coming in riding a hot hand from the World Cup, and could figure to play a nice role on that Nets this upcoming season.

Follow Nick on Twitter: @Ziggy26x

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Brooklyn Nets Sign Two Of Their Second-Round Picks

By Nick Ziegler (@Ziggy26x)

July 23^rd, 2014

nba.com

The day after officially signing Bojan Bogdanovic to his three-year contract, the Brooklyn Nets signed two of their three second-round draft picks. On Wednesday, Brooklyn signed Markel Brown and Cory Jefferson to multi-year deals.

In the 2014 Summer League, both Brown and Jefferson played extremely well, and earned their NBA contracts. Jefferson was second on the team in PPG behind Mason Plumlee with 11.2, on a ridiculous 70% shooting from the field in just 21.4 minutes per game. Besides the great scoring output from Jefferson, he was also the leading rebounder on the team with 6.8 RPG.

 Brown, like Jefferson scored the basketball well in five games, as he averaged 10.0 PPG. Like he did at Oklahoma State, Brown would do more than just score during games, as he added a nice 4.2 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game. One improvement Brown can work on in training camp is his turnovers, which were a bit high in the small sample size of Summer League at 3.4 per game.

Brooklyn’s roster now seems to be pretty much set at 15 players, but compared to last season they have a lot more youth with moves made by Billy King. Brooklyn seems to have gotten some possible rotation players in Brown and Jefferson in the draft, and with Deron Williams and Brook Lopez coming off of surgeries, training camp could be a good time to get some extra court time, which will help them develop. 

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Brooklyn Nets To Sign Bojan Bogdanovic

By Nick Ziegler (@Ziggy26x)

July 8^th, 2014

Brooklyn Nets To Sign Bojan Bogdanovic

gettyimages

The Brooklyn Nets after losing Shaun Livingston, who they were planning on using their mini mid-level exception on, now turned their focus to 6-8 Forward Bojan Bogdanovic, a European sharpshooter. The mini mid-level contract for Bogdanovic will be for two years, with a third year player option that can make the deal worth 10.3 million dollars.

Brooklyn had the rights to Bogdanovic from 2011, as they got his draft rights that season in a trade, and they did try to bring him over last off-season, but were unsuccessful. Last season in Europe, Bogdanovic averaged 14.8 PPG, but did struggle from beyond the arc only shooting 29.8%, compared to shooting over 40% from beyond the arc in his previous two seasons.

Bogdanovic is from the same hometown as Mirza Teletovic, who will surely make his transition to the Nets, and America a bit easier. There is still a lot of uncertainty to whether or not the Nets will be able to keep Paul Pierce and if Pierce leave will that effect Kevin Garnett’s decision to return, so adding some depth to the front court in Bogdanovic makes sense for the Nets.

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