Joerger plans to use Bogdanovic as a point guard

During the break in the schedule last week, Sacramento Kings head coach Dave Joerger was working on trying to figure out how he was going to utilize Bogdan Bogdanovic in his rotation moving forward.

Bogdanovic returned on Nov. 7 from an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee to fix a small injury. He has since got back into game shape and shed his minutes’ restriction, and Joerger said it has been difficult for him to figure out how to fit Bogie back into the scheme of things. Joerger has to get the 6’6’’ Bogdanovic minutes in between the minutes that need to be allocated to De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield in the backcourt.

It appears Joerger may have figured out his plan.

On Thursday against the Los Angeles Clippers, Bogdanovic saw a large bulk of his 35 minutes come as a facilitator in the offense, often spelling Fox off the bench as a backup point guard.

After the game, Joerger confirmed his strategy.

”I am going to play him at point guard. So, there will be times where it is going to be him and Buddy, and there will be times where he plays with De’Aaron, and there will be times when Buddy plays with De’Aaron. So, kind of spin those guys around a little bit,” he said.

Bogdanovic finished with 26 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds in the loss to the Clippers. In even more proof of Joerger’s direction, Frank Mason, who has served as the team’s backup point guard for the majority of the season only logged 1:38 minutes, his lowest total thus far this season.

While Bogdanovic performed well in this role in terms of setting up teammates, there were times when he over-dribbled a tad too much, which could have possibly tired him out. He admits he has things to learn still in this role, but also says he is ready for it.

”I feel comfortable and I think I’m making my guys better players,” Bogdanovic said.

Hield, who will be playing alongside Bogdanovic quite a bit, had this to say: “He plays the right way – a scoring guard that can play point. He does a tremendous job of finding the bigs ... playmaker man, that’s what we need out there and he’s good at it.”

Bogie played this role off and on last season so it isn’t something completely new. In his 78 games played in the 2017-18 campaign, he averaged 3.3 assists, but also was responsible for quite a few “hockey assists” and facilitating the offense at times. This season, however, Joerger is coming out and declaring that he is going to be playing him as a point guard. Bogdanovic was asked if Joerger has spoken to him about this role:

”We talked about it before the season started and yeah, I think I’m good at it,” Bogdanovic said.