It’s not a bad time to be Knicks forward Bojan Bogdanvoic. He spent all of last season, after all, toiling for the woebegone Pistons, winners of 17 games, and opened this season still in Detroit, which was en route to and even bigger disaster, a 14-68 showing this year. But the Knicks rescued Bogdnaovic with a trade-deadline deal for Evan Fournier, Quentin Grimes and spare parts.
Now, he’s a key reserve on a team that looks very much like it has a shot at reaching the East finals. Nice turn of events.
But Bogdanovic spent half the season as a starter, averaging 20.2 points in Detroit, numbers that took a serious hit when he was asked to be a role player in New York. There, his scoring average dropped to 10.4 points.
So it came as some surprise that Bogdanovic appeared the NBA’s tally for the league’s Sixth Man of the Year Award, racking up one third-place vote, enough to put him in a ninth-place tie. The award went to Naz Reid of Minnesota. But Bogdanovic’s appearance on the ballot raised eyebrows—and the likely solution to the mystery came to light.
Bojan Bogdanovic is NOT Bogdan Bogdanovic
Bojan Bogdanovic, of course, is not key Hawks reserve Bogdan Bogdanovic, but the two-letter difference might well have been the cause of the confusion. Bogdan Bogdanvoic finished fifth in the sixth-man voting after he averaged 16.9 points, 3.4 assists and 3.1 rebounds in 79 games (33 off the bench) for Atlanta.
The third-place vote was surely meant for the Hawks’ Bogdanovic.
As Alex Burns of 5 Reasons Sports wrote on Twitter/X: “The funniest thing about the Sixth Man ballot is that one voter absolutely meant to vote for BOGDAN Bogdanovic and mistakenly voted for BOJAN Bogdanovic.”
Ryan Blackburn of Mile High Sports wrote, “I’m sorry, does that say Bojan Bogdanvoic at the bottom?”
Even the Knicks fan site New York Basketball ran a joke poll wondering, “Someone voted Bojan Bogdanovic 3rd for Sixth Man of the Year because they: Felt he was deserving (or) Meant Bogdan Bogdanovic.”
In fairness to Bogdanovic, in total, his numbers this season are quite good. He averaged 15.2 points on 45.4% shooting, making 39.8% of his 3s. That is worthy of a third-place vote, no doubt. The only problem is that, in 57 games, he started 29 of them, making him not much of a sixth man.
Knicks Are Happy With Their 6th Man
Besides which, Bogdanovic has bigger fish to fry these days. After some rough adjustment time to his new role off the bench, he has been a reliable bench veteran who has helped the team get through the early struggles of star guard Jalen Brunson on their way to a 2-0 series lead against the Sixers.
Bogdanovic has not shot particularly well, but he has given the Knicks five big 3-pointers on 12 attempts in the first two games. His back-to-back 3s in the stretch run in Game 2 were huge.
“As a basketball player, I think every single player wanna be part this environment, be part of playoffs, especially this kind of game,” he said after the game, per the Daily News. “Especially with all the time that we hadn’t won the game [were trailing]. It’s big time.”
Bogdanovic commented on the shots he made late in the game against the Sixers.
“We were tied and then I think the momentum change was also Deuce [Miles McBride] getting that strip from someone and getting that layup,” he said. “In the playoffs, every single play and every single turnover, offensive board is big and it’s crucial for us.”
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