5 Reasons the Brooklyn Nets won’t be the worst NBA team

4.)  A Breakout for Bogdanovic?

The first two seasons for the 27-year-old Croatian have featured a serious case of Jekyll and Hyde. As a rookie, Bogdanovic struggled out of the gate averaging 7.6 points per game (ppg) on 41 percent shooting prior to the All-Star break, but during the second half of the season he upped his production to 11.6 ppg on 51.3 percent.

A similar trend continued during his sophomore campaign as he struggled for the majority of the first half of the season but finished strong during the final 25 games. Prior to last year’s All-Star break, the Nets’ forward averaged 9.4 points but increased that number to 15.1 ppg in roughly the same amount of minutes, while shooting 40 percent from three point territory.

It’s worth noting that despite his inconsistencies, Bogdanovic has showed glimpses of his talent that made him a sneaky Euro-stash pick during the 2011 draft when the Nets selected him 31st overall. As a rookie, it was his 28-point outburst in the final game of the regular season that rallied the Nets past Orlando en route to clinching the Eastern Conference’s final playoff seed.

Just last year, Bogie averaged nearly 17 points during the month of March once he was inserted into the starting lineup, highlighted by a 44-point explosion against the Sixers. It’s moments like these that give the Nets hope that Bogdanovic can be a consistent source of scoring next to Brook Lopez and Jeremy Lin.

Entering his third and final year under contract figures to be an important one for the Nets’ small forward. For the first time in his NBA career he enters the season with confidence and momentum, coming off an impressive showing in this summer’s FIBA Qualifying Tournament in which he averaged 24.2 points as well as in the Summer Olympics in Rio where was scoring at a rate of 25.3 ppg.