ORLANDO, Fla. — Bojan Bogdanovic won’t be joining the Nets next season after all.
Shortly after Nets general manager Billy King expressed reservations about Bogdanovic coming over to join the Nets next season, he confirmed the team moved on from the possibility of bringing him over.
“It is [disappointing],” Nets coach Jason Kidd said after the Nets lost 98-69 to the Jazz in summer league action yesterday. “One, you think you had a deal done, and he’s coming over, but Billy and Dmitry [Razumov] and the guys in management will figure out what’s the plan and which direction we’re going in, but you thought he was coming over.
“I think Billy and those guys can handle Plan B.”
They won’t have a choice after their agreement on a three-year deal with Bogdanovic using most of their mini mid-level exception fell through because of hangups with the buyout of Bogdanovic’s contract with Turkish power Fenerbahce Ulker.
The Nets will retain Bogdanovic’s rights, and his contract with Fenerbahce is set to expire after next season. At that point, however, he could be in line for a big pay raise in Europe — either from his current club or another — that could make it difficult for the Nets to bring him over even then, presuming they still would want to do so.
Bogdanovic, 24, is a 6-foot-8 small forward who would have given the Nets a shooting threat from the perimeter in addition to giving them a backup to spell Paul Pierce, who Brooklyn won’t officially acquire until the blockbuster trade with the Celtics goes through tomorrow. The only small forward currently on the roster is Tornike Shengelia.
Now the team will have to go in another direction to find added depth behind Pierce, with King saying the team could use the full mini mid-level exception on one player, or split it between multiple players to fill out the final two open roster spots.
“There’s one [player worth the full exception], possibly,” King said, “and then there’s some other guys that maybe we’ll split it up and give it to a couple guys to fill the role.”
One possible option is Russian Andrei Kirilenko, who has been linked to the Nets multiple times over the last couple of seasons because he knows team owner Mikhail Prokhorov. But Kirilenko turned down a $10 million player option for this upcoming season to stay in Minnesota, and while he isn’t expected to get that much money on his new deal, he would have to take more than a healthy pay cut if he chose to re-sign with the Nets for the $3.183 million they could offer him using the full mini mid-level exception.
Yahoo! Sports reported one potential option for the Nets is Raptors swingman Alan Anderson, who averaged 10.7 points and shot 33.3 percent from 3-point range last season.
It’s also possible the Nets could wait and see if any wing players become available through the amnesty process, with the Lakers set to possible amnesty Metta World Peace. The Kings could do the same with John Salmons.