Hawks wing Bogdan Bogdanovic says he’s completely recovered from the right knee soreness that hampered him during the playoffs, Chris Kirschner of The Athletic reports.
Bogdanovic appeared in 18 postseason games and averaged 14.1 PPG but shot a subpar 32.9% from long range after knocking down a career-best 43.8% of his 3-point attempts during 44 regular-season games.
He received a PRP shot after the season and says he’s ready for training camp.
“I wanted to just make sure that I was 100 percent healthy at the beginning of this coming season,” he said. “It’s nothing serious where I had surgery or anything like that. I am good, and I am healthy now. That’s already behind me and was a long time ago. I have no problems now.”
He admitted the injury nagged him during the playoffs.
“You just don’t have time in the playoffs to recover how you would want,” he said. “It’s such a loss to get hurt in the playoffs because you feel like you can’t do anything that you want to do.”
Bogdanovic, who will be entering the second year of the four-year, $72 million contract he signed as a restricted free agent, addressed numerous other topics with Kirschner. Here are some of the highlights:
- Bogdanovic says it’s imperative that the Hawks don’t get complacent after its surprising postseason run: “Our heads should be on this is a new season and we need to scratch everything that we did last season,” he said. “It’s a new mentality. We have to find new motivation.”
- He believes the Hawks won’t gain greater respect around the league unless it continues to advance deep into the playoffs: “We can’t just do it one year and then the next season we get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs,” he said.
- He sees De’Andre Hunter as a key to the Hawks' continued success. “He’s really one of those players I was talking about that just wants to be one of those great players,” he said. “He’s so good on both ends of the floor, and it’s just different when you have him on the court.”
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