The above is five minutes of highlights, average-lights, and general on-court awareness from new Brooklyn Nets forward Bojan Bogdanovic against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who the Nets selected with the first pick of the second round in the 2010 NBA draft. This isn’t an NBA game — it was a part of the NBA’s Global Games initiative in the 2013-14 preseason — but it was nonetheless a chance for Bogdanovic to showcase his NBA-level skills against real competition.
There’s a lot of good to see in here. Bogdanovic scores in a few different ways, throws a beautiful one-handed, 70-foot pass that hits the target perfectly, backs down Jeremy Lamb and hits a nice floater (negated by an early whistle), and generally looks like he belongs amongst the trees. There’s a couple of moments where he passes up hitting an open teammate, but in an exhibition where he’s the best player on the floor against an NBA team, you can’t really blame him for going for his own shot.
Besides, Bogdanovic’s bullheadedness led to the inarguable highlight of the video, when he pulls up off the dribble and nails a three right in Kevin Durant’s face. The full play begins around 2:50.
Though the Thunder won 95-82, Bogdanovic led all scorers not named Durant with 19 points on 4-10 shooting. All of his baskets came from behind the arc (4-8 from deep), he hit seven of eight free throws (he shot 81% from the line in all Euroleague phases last season), and he added four rebounds to only one turnover.
