Bogdanovic: season over with the Clippers, 2027 option declined
The Serbian guard played 23 games in Los Angeles for an average of 7.4 points; the 16-million-dollar team option for next season will not be picked up.
August 2025, a gym in Limassol, Cyprus, the Serbia national team training camp ahead of EuroBasket. Bogdan Bogdanovic is sitting alone on the bench, his left leg stretched out, physiotherapist Slobodan Tasev working on his hamstring. That is where the season began that Bogi himself would later describe as “the hardest of my career, one I never really walked into”. An injury in pre-season, a drop in playing time, then being written out of the rotation. All in a season where he was supposed to be one of the key guards making the offence of the LA Clippers.
Bogdanovic in 2025-26 played 23 games, averaging 7.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 19.7 minutes per game, according to the specialised site 213hoops. He was in the rotation at the start only because of an injury to Chris Paul, and after January played only two games, according to the same source.
What went wrong in Los Angeles?
The pre-season hamstring injury brought him to the first weeks of pre-season practice with doubt over whether he would even start the season. By the time he said in October he was ready, head coach Tyronn Lue already had Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell, Chris Paul and Bones Hyland in the rotation as guards and wings. Bogdanovic immediately slipped to 11th man on a twelve-man rotation, which in practice meant two to three minutes a game when he played at all.
In March, with the end of the season in sight, he got concrete twenty-something minutes a game. Sports Illustrated notes that in one of those games he had 16 points in 27 minutes, six of nine from the field, three of five from three. There you could see the reason why in Atlanta, where he spent the previous five seasons, he averaged 17 points a game. The form had not disappeared, the context had.
From the locker room there were no open disputes with coach Lue, although sources close to the team mentioned as early as January that Bogi had asked for a meeting with the general manager about a trade. That did not happen by the trade deadline, which left the Clippers and Bogi to finish the season with Bogi on the bench.
What next, where does he play next season?
The Clippers’ team option for 2026-27 is worth 16.02 million dollars, but, according to 213hoops, it will be declined. That means Bogdanovic in June becomes an unrestricted free agent. At 32 and with a season that has slipped so far statistically, it is not realistic to expect an offer above ten million per season, but the market could be wider than it looks. Former clubs Sacramento and Atlanta are in recent GM chatter mentioned as possible destinations, according to Clutch Points, although there are no concrete offers.
From the coaching side, Bogdanovic’s former Fenerbahce coach Zeljko Obradovic in March gave his view that Bogdan has another three to four years of top-level career and that the EuroLeague could be a realistic option, as reported by Sport Klub. Specifically, Obradovic is in Belgrade, but a return to Serbian clubs Partizan or Crvena Zvezda has not yet been part of public conversations.
Bogdan is back in Belgrade by the last week of May. The next point on the calendar is the Serbia national team training camp, set for July 15 ahead of EuroBasket 2026. There we will also see whether, after last year’s injury, he is fully back to the level he was used to.
On the personal side, one season does not decide a career. Bogdanovic between 2018 and 2024 was among the top twenty guards in the league, averaging close to 16 points a game. What the LA season shows is that for guards of his style, where the main strength is shooting from distance and attacking out of the pick-and-roll, getting the right system is decisive. In Atlanta with coach Quin Snyder he had space. In LA with Lue, who is more a defensive-style expert, that space disappeared.
From the sporting side, what matters is that Bogdan in February and March, when the Clippers were chasing the season’s salvation, did finally get the chance and did not miss it. Technically the game is there, the shooting memory is intact, the head is solid. He simply needs a club where he is in the top eight, with a guaranteed 22 to 28 minutes a game. If that club shows up, another three good years of Bogdan is realistic before he leaves the NBA. If not, the EuroLeague with Real Madrid or Fenerbahce is the option that is waiting.
