Can i ask did people here actually watch Bojan play before he came to Utah? Did you know that Bojan started playing basketball as a 15 year old (and before that he played football or soccer as people in the USA call it) and as a 16 year old kid singed a 5 year contract with Real Madrid (the same club Dončić played for before NBA and Dončić also came as a kid to Real Madrid). For people who dont know, Real Madrid is like the biggest and the richest club in the world when it comes to soccer and basketball (obviously were talking outside of NBA when it comes to basketball). Imagine that, youre playing basketball for one whole year and then the biggest club in Europe comes and offers you a 5 year deal. After 3 years in Spain and after Real changed their coach, he wasnt sure he was going to get a real chance to play for the first team ( in Europe, there is no draft and therefore there is no tanking, teams like Real want to win titles every single year, they dont have a lot of room for developing young talented players) so he came back to Croatia to play for Cibona Zagreb.
Cibona was the best Croatian club at the time and they played Euroleague ( which is by far the highest level of basketball youre gonna find outside of NBA) but they were one of the worst teams in Eurolegaue. That didnt stop Bojan though, he led Eurolegaue in scoring despite playing for one of the worst teams, he averaged little less than 20 ppg. So you would see him regularly dropping 20-30 points on teams like Barcelona (fun fact: Ricky Rubio played for Barcelona during that time). Already as a 20 year old, he was considered as one of the best players in Europe. During that time, he was constantly rejecting offers from best European teams (Spain, Greece,Turkey... he could have gone anywhere he wanted really), he said he was gonna play for Cibona " out of spite".
After 2 years there, he went to Turkey. played 3 years there and then went to the NBA. So he isnt some random dude who came out of nowhere, he came to the NBA as one of the best players in Europe. Comparing Bogdanović (who is a 20 ppg all around scorer) to Niang (who just stands in the corner and waits for somebody to pass him the ball so he can shoot a three) is nonsense. Comparing him to Stojaković is a fair comparison, although i would say Stojaković was a better shooter ( Bojan is a great shooter, but Stojaković was one of the best shooters ever) but I think Bojan is better at attacking and finishing around the rim (he can attack both left and right and he can finish with both hands). He is much more athletic than he looks like, his problem is he doesnt dunk as often as he should so people dont realize that, but we do get a nice dunk from Bojan every once in a while.
You know how there are some guys that youre not sure what their position(is he a PG or a SG) and role is or should be (is he a SF or a PF, can he defend against bigger guys, can he stop smaller faster guys). With Bojan there was never any question what his role is. He was always a scorer for every team he ever played for since he started playing basketball, thats what he was born to do. And Utah knew this when they brought him in. They didnt sign him because they thought he was a great rebounder or a lockdown defender, they signed him because he was a great scorer and a great shooter. Signing Bojan and then complaining he is not a great rebounder would be like signing Gobert and then complaining that he is a terrible 3 point shooter. Its just ridiculous.
And one more thing, Bogdanović always plays his best games when it matters the most. So come playoff time, I guarantee he is going to be a guy shooting the basketball a lot.