For a Croatian basketball player, being mentioned in the same breath as the late Drazen Petrovic is something special.
On Wednesday night, Bojan Bogdanovic passed Petrovic on the Nets’ all-time three-pointers list. Bogdanovic hit three on Wednesday, part of a team-high 21-point night in Boston, bringing his Nets’ total to 223. Petrovic hit 220 during his illustrious, but all-too-short Nets’ career.
“It’s always nice to hear when your name is around Drazen’s name,” Bogdanovic said on Thursday at HSS Training Center. “So it’s a big honor for me to be on there and to pass him.”
Petrovic averaged 19.5 points per game as a Net and was one of the NBA’s first foreign-born stars. Even 23 years after his passing, his name still carries a ton of weight in NBA circles, and especially in Croatia.
“You cannot even imagine,” Bogdanovic said of Petrovic’s importance in Croatia. “He’s probably the best athlete ever in Croatia. A couple of days ago was his birthday, so all around the country everybody celebrated it. He’s one of the best over there.”
Bogdanovic is currently in sole possession of 12th on the Nets’ all-time three-point leaderboard, 11 shy of Stephon Marbury (234). With Marbury, Mirza Teletovic (235) and Lucious Harris (236) all bunched together, Bogdanovic should be in the Nets’ top-10 before long.
As for career three-point average, Bogdanovic is 11th in Nets’ history, averaging 1.41 threes per game (in approximately 3.8 attempts per game). Bogdanovic took eight three-pointers as the Nets hauled up a franchise-high 44 on Wednesday night, so the Nets new focus plays into his hands.
“Kenny wants us to play with pace. When you have so many fast breaks it’s normal to have many open threes,” Bogdanovic said. “It’s good to play with this pace.”
Bogdanovic and the Nets return to Brooklyn for their home opener on Friday night against the Indiana Pacers.
