Hawks 2024-25 player profile: Bogdan Bogdanovic enters season on heater

The countdown to training camp is on, with one week until the Atlanta Hawks report for the 2024-25 season’s session.

Soaring Down South will be going through the roster and doing player profiles with stats and recaps of the 2023-24 season as well as a look ahead to 2024-25. Up next, is veteran swingman Bogdan Bogdanovic.

Coming off a strong showing in the Olympics, 2024-25 could be big for Bogdanovic.

Bogdan Bogdanovic 2024-25 player profile: Veteran’s summer bodes well for Hawks

2023-24 stats: 16.9 PPG/3.4 RPG/3.1 APG/1.2 SPG – .428/.374/.921

2024-25 projection: 17.0 PPG/3.3 RPG/4.0 APG/1.1 SPG – .440/.375/.900

Bogdanovic appeared in a career-high 79 games in 2023-24, also setting a career-high with his steals. The 6-foot-6 swingman has averaged double-digit points in each of his seven NBA seasons and at least 14.0 PPG in each of the last six seasons.

He finished in the top 10 in Sixth Man of the Year voting in two of the past three seasons and is a dark-horse candidate for the award entering the 2024-25 season.

Bogdanovic also wants to appear in all 82 games this coming season.

He is also a willing bench player, preferring to finish games over starting them, all of which should play into his potential bid for the Sixth Man of the Year award this coming season. More importantly, it would be a good thing for the Hawks.

Bogdanovic led the Hawks in on-off differential with a plus-11.9 mark, ranking in the 96th percentile in 2023-24, per Cleaning The Glass.

He also finished second on the team in on-off differential in 2021-22.

Hawks need Bogdan Bogdanovic to stay healthy

Bogdanovic’s goal is admirable. But the Hawks must help him get there by properly managing his minutes, another reason to keep him in a reserve/sixth-man role. He maxed out at 63 games from 2019-20 to this past season.

He also dealt with knee injuries, including an avulsion fracture that nagged him. At 32 years old, Father Time is not on his side and injuries do not improve with age.

That is why his durability in 2023-24 and his performance this summer are so encouraging.

Bogdanovic is defying the odds in that sense. He says he wants to finish his playing career with Febernace in Serbia when his NBA career is done. But he does not plan on doing that just yet and, coming off that impressive Olympic run, that is the most encouraging thing for the Hawks.