JULY 10th, 10:48pm: Bogdanovic has officially signed with the team, according to a Pacers press release.
JULY 7th, 1:48pm: The Pacers have agreed to sign Bojan Bogdanovic to a two-year, $21MM contract with a partial guarantee in year two, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter links). The news comes right on the heels of a report that the Wizards pulled Bogdanovic’s qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent.
Bogdanovic, 28, enjoyed the best season of his NBA career in 2016/17, starting 54 games for the Nets before being sent to the Wizards at the trade deadline. For the season, the 6’8″ swingman averaged 13.7 PPG and 3.4 RPG, with a .445/.367/.893 shooting line. He also chipped in 8.8 PPG and 4.3 RPG in 13 playoff games for Washington.
After receiving a qualifying offer from the Wizards, Bogdanovic entered July as a restricted free agent. However, Washington’s priority was to retain Otto Porter, and the team is now poised to match an offer sheet for Porter from the Nets. That put Bogdanovic out of the Wizards’ price range, particularly after the club agreed to sign a lower-cost replacement in Jodie Meeks.
Reports earlier in free agency pegged Bogdanovic’s asking price at $16MM per year over three or four seasons, which might have been attainable last summer, but was never realistic in this year’s market. The Pacers will get him at a $10.5MM annual salary, and will have an out for the second year if things don’t work out in Indiana in 2017/18. The new-look Pacers likely envision Bogdanovic as a replacement for C.J. Miles, who remains on the free agent market.
The Pacers will use cap room to sign Bogdanovic, and won’t have a whole lot of space left after also having signed Darren Collison to a deal that looks similar to Bogdanovic’s. Based on my rough calculations, Indiana’s team salary will be at around $94MM after officially adding Bogdanovic.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Bojan Bogdanovic is not the same player as Bogdan Bogdanovic, who has agreed to a three-year deal with the Kings.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Love this signing.
Feel like they could’ve landed KCP in the neighborhood of 14mpy instead
Yeah, maybe over 4 years and fully guaranteed though
He’ll average like 20 if he starts.
You can’t start him though because of what happens on defense if you do that.
Well you’re looking at a possible starting 5 of Collison, Oladipo, Bogdanovic, Young and Turner. Between those 5 there’s maybe 1 defender so you might as well go all offense.
& then let up 20 on the defensive end….
I would rather sign Bogdanovic at that price than Porter at a max!
I think this repeated comment I’m seeing in articles about this guy that ~$15m per for four years was never realistic is dumb and baseless extraneous analysis (something this site generally avoids thankfully) considering Tim Hardaway got more that that after having put up similar numbers and having a similarly unrobust market for his services.
I get that it only takes one team to put something crazy on the table, but I don’t think Bogdanovic was ever a candidate for a Hardway-esque offer. There just weren’t many guys getting deals like that this summer, and I think Hardaway was in a much better situation for it (he’s a better two-way player than Bogdanovic, he’s a few years younger, and the Hawks were in a way better position to match, meaning a team had to overpay to get him — that wasn’t the case for the Wizards when Bogdanovic was restricted). Maybe “that was never a likely outcome” would’ve been a fairer way of saying it than “that was never a realistic demand” but the fact that he ended up with this relatively modest deal makes me think both are true.
I don’t think you saw enough of Hardaway Jr last season, I saw him completely torche Cleveland in their house bucket after bucket and left Lebron looking clueless like MAN I WISH I CAN SHOOT LIKE THAT. Phil Jackson made a big mistake letting that man go, please Atlanta do not match.
No team was giving Hardaway more than 4 for $48. Steve Mills (IE dosent know Basketball) overpaid by $20+ million for him. Typical loser Knick move….
Wiz should respond by signbing CJ.
$10M for ex-Nets player….total rebuild. Someone mentioned KCP for Pacers….not an Indiana player. Selfish and low hoops IQ…that is why Van Gundy dumped him @ the first opportunity!
Pacers are paying another former Net around $40mil in Thad Young, it’s as bad as the Colts grabbing former Browns players like they’re candy and wondering what happened to the team.