Bogdan Bogdanović (basketball)

Early career

Bogdanovic first played organized basketball for ŠKK Zvezdara in Belgrade. In April 2008, he switched to another Belgrade club, Žitko Basket, which at the time was called Alimenti Basket. Under coach Dragan Jakovljević, he helped Žitko Basket finish third in the 2009–10 Junior Serbian League. That April, at the final eight tournament in Vršac, his team beat Partizan’s juniors in the quarterfinals, lost 89–86 to Hemofarm’s juniors in the semifinals, and then defeated FMP’s junior team 82–76 for third place.

A few weeks later, in May 2010, Bogdanovic and fellow Žitko player Luka Pajković joined FMP’s junior squad for the Nike International Junior Tournament in Paris. Their group included KK Split, Treviso, and Málaga. After wins over Treviso and Split, FMP needed to beat Málaga’s juniors to top the group.

Bogdanovic delivered an off-balance buzzer-beater to seal a 79–78 victory, finishing with 21 points and 6 rebounds. In the final, FMP lost 73–83 to INSEP. Bogdanovic had a rough game, leaving early due to a mid-game injury.

Professional career

Bogdan Bogdanović began his professional basketball career in September 2010, signing with Partizan at age 18. Under head coach Vlada Jovanović, he saw limited playing time during his first two seasons with the club.

When Duško Vujošević returned as head coach in the summer of 2012, the 20-year-old started getting more minutes. His role became even more consistent after Danilo Anđušić left the team in December 2012. That same season, Bogdanović made his EuroLeague debut, averaging 5 points and 1.8 rebounds across six games.

After joining the Serbian national team in the summer of 2013, he gained greater confidence from coach Vujošević, which led to more playing time and a larger role in the 2013–14 season. In a EuroLeague win over CSKA Moscow in Belgrade, he scored a career-high 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting. Serbian national team selector Aleksandar Đorđević praised him shortly after, calling him one of the most promising young European players. In a February ABA League road game against Cibona, Bogdanović posted another career-high with 32 points, along with 4 rebounds and 5 assists.

Over 23 EuroLeague games that season, he averaged career-best marks of 14.8 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists. In April 2014, he and teammate Joffrey Lauvergne were named to the ABA League Ideal Team. The following month, he was voted the EuroLeague Rising Star by the league's 24 head coaches.

Partizan closed the season by winning its 13th consecutive Serbian League title, defeating archrivals Red Star Belgrade 3–1 in the finals. Bogdanović dominated the series, averaging 30.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game, earning him Finals MVP honors.

National team career

Bogdanović's play with Žitko got him a training camp invite ahead of the 2009 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship in France, however he was quickly cut by head coach Vlada Jovanović since he was about to turn 17 at that time. In the summer of 2010, Bogdanović was selected to represent Serbia by head coach Jovanović for the European under-18 Championship wherein they finished fourth in the tournament. The following year, Bogdanović, while still with Partizan at the club level, was selected to play for Serbia's Under-19 national team under head coach Dejan Mijatović at the 2011 FIBA Under-19 World Championship in Latvia.

Playing alongside Aleksandar Cvetković, Đorđe Drenovac, Luka Mitrović, Nemanja Dangubić, and Nemanja Bešović, they finished as a runner-up against a Jonas Valančiūnas-led Lithuanian team. Bogdanović averaged 8.9 points and 5 rebounds per game for the tournament. In the EuroBasket 2013 in Slovenia, Bogdanović represented the senior Serbian national team, averaging 9.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2 assists per game. Bogdanović was a member of the Serbian national basketball team that won the silver medal at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, under head coach Aleksandar Đorđević.

Senior national team

He emerged in the knockout phase against Greece, Brazil, and France, and ended the tournament with averages of 12 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game, on 47% shooting. In the last few pre-tournament friendly games for the EuroBasket 2015, Serbian team head coach Đorđević put Bogdanović on the bench due to the twenty-three-year-old player's persistent back injury problems. Despite that, he was named to the 12-man roster that represented Serbia at the EuroBasket.

Throughout the first phase of the tournament, playing with pain injections, he saw limited minutes, and his production slightly decreased from the previous summer. Despite that, Serbia dominated in the tournament's toughest group, Group B, with a 5–0 record, and then eliminated Finland and Czech Republic in the round of 16 and quarterfinal games, respectively. However, they were stopped in the semifinal game by Lithuania, with a score of 67–64, and eventually lost to the tournament's host team, France, in the bronze-medal game, with a score of 81–68.