Sacramento Kings: What is Bogdan Bogdanovic’s trade value?

There’s little to reason the Sacramento Kings will trade Bogdan Bogdanovic, but how much might he be worth if they do?

The Sacramento Kings aren’t likely to trade Bogdan Bogdanovic — especially after a down season in his second year — but what might he fetch in a trade if they do?

Bogdan Bogdanovic, the Kings’ resident fan favorite and second-year wing from Serbia, is coming off an up-and-down season that was mostly filled with downs. After missing the first month of the season, Bogdanovic was forced to play multiple positions and couldn’t really find his groove.

He had several strong games and is still very much a part of the Kings’ future, but it is possible the Kings — if they’re enamored with a certain prospect (or other player) enough — try to package Bogdanovic, as he’s one of the team’s few desirable pieces aside from their core of Buddy Hield, De’Aaron Fox and Marvin Bagley III.

Whether or not it’s likely Bogi is traded isn’t the point though, it’s what he could net if he were to be traded. So what’s the value of a 26-year-old wing who play three positions and run an offense? It’s not as high as you’d think.

Bogdanovic, for all his positive moments this season, was still a net-negative for the Sacramento Kings in 2018-19. Most of Bogdanovic’s value comes from his versatility and offense, but he struggled with the latter for most of the season.

He posted a respectable 14.1 points per game, but shot just 41.8% from the field and posted a true shooting percentage (TS%) of 53%. Even though he shot 56% at the rim, his 36% three-point percentage was a bit disappointing for a player who’s billed as a sharpshooter and shot nearly 40% on three’s in year one.

As a result, he posted a perfectly neutral 0.0 player impact plus-minus (PIPM), but his minus-1.0 Defensive PIPM kept him as a net-negative. He also posted a minus-0.7 box plus-minus and a 14.1 player efficiency rating (15.0 is league average), so his value is diminished as he’s coming off a tough season that fell short of expectations.

More importantly, perhaps, is FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO projections. CARMELO (Career-Arc Regression Model Estimator with Local Optimization) projections identify similar players thought NBA history and uses them to project a current players future. The current picture for Bogdanovic isn’t pretty.

It’s important to keep in mind these things can change (and quickly, as we saw with Pascal Siakam), but now, Bogi’s projected future production never tops 0.7 wins above replacement, which he’s projected to hit in the 2019-20 season. Categorized as an “Offensive Specialist”, Bodanovic’s five-year market value sits at $32.1 million. That’s less than ideal for a player who signed the largest rookie contract in history, a contract that Sportac rates as the 55th most valuable among NBA guards, behind players such as Josh Hart, Zach LaVine and Tyus Jones.

FiveThirtyEight also lists Bogi’s closest comparison as 2004 Gordan Giricek, who averaged 11.3 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists on 51.6 TS%. More tellingly, however, are some of Bogdan’s other comparisons, which include 2017 Will Barton (traded in 2015) and 2006 Fred Jones (traded twice in 2007).

When Barton was traded — at age 24 — he helped net the Portland Trailblazers a 29-year-old Aaron Afflalo who was averaging 10.6 points, 2.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. Jones, meanwhile, was traded straight up for 28-year-old Juan Dixon, an 11-point per game scorer and again in 2007 as part of a trade that brought for Channing Frye and Steve Francis to the Portland Trailblazers. Francis did not play a game for Portland.

To get a further sense of Bogi’s trade value, we could look to other guards Sportac rates as similar value to Bogdanovic, Wayne Ellington (59th in value) and Danny Green (50th on value). While Bogdanovic’s current situation with the Sacramento Kings doesn’t perfectly compare with either of those players, they can help give a sense of his value.

Ellington was immediately waived after being traded to the Phoenix Suns for Ryan Anderson, before landing with the Pistons and helping the, reach the playoffs for the first time. Ellington is also 31-years-old and was cut as a courtesy, so that he was cut isn’t necessarily indicative of his value.

Green, meanwhile, was a big reason in the Toronto Raptors-San Antonio Spurs blockbuster that sent Kawhi Leonard to the Raptors and DeMar DeRozan to the Spurs. While that was mostly due to his salary, Green has been phenomenal in Toronto and the Spurs are likely kicking themselves after losing two incredible players in one trade. Green is also 31-years-old.

So if that was the going rate for two players of similar value, but clearly on the back half of their careers, what’s Bogdanovic’s? Still, likely not enough to justify trading him. We went over two trades involving Bogi for the 15th overall pick and the 23rd overall pick — with the latter being a straight-up trade.

Bleacher Report also highlighted Bogdanovic as a potential piece in a hypothetical Sacramento Kings offer for Anthony Davis, though Marvin Bagley III was the centerpiece in that “deal”.

So what do you do? Trade Bogdanovic for a middle-to-late first-round selection? Or maybe a backup point guard? Sactown Royalty’s Richard Ivanowski threw out a hypothetical Bogdanovic for Josh Jackson and De’Anthony Melton trade and a Bogdanovic-Clint Capela trade has been popular food for thought.

Those trades represent the absolute high-end of what the Sacramento Kings would likely get for Bogdanovic, while a draft pick somewhere between 15-25th overall this year is the best they’d receive to that end. Is that worth it? Probably not.