Bogdan Bogdanovic names Serbia as favorite to win medal, hopes for gold / News - Basketnews.com

Bogdan Bogdanovic says that Serbia is the favorite to win a medal in the upcoming EuroBasket 2022 and hopes that his country will win gold.

Credit: AP-Scanpix Credit AP-Scanpix

Before the upcoming EuroBasket 2022, Bogdan Bogdanovic believes that Serbia is the favorite to win the medal and hopes his country will win the title.

Player of the Game EFF 28 Nikola Jokic Points 29 Accuracy 11-16 Rebounds 8 Assists 6

However, Serbia will have to do it without Bogdanovic, who will miss the EuroBasket due to an injury.

"I have a lot of faith in our guys," Bogdanovic said before BB basketball camp. "Even when we played in the World Cup. It's a similar team. There is energy, chemistry, something new has awakened."

I'm glad we play good and beautiful basketball, the crowd enjoys what we're doing – extra passes, reading. Everything starts from Jokic. We are the favorites for a medal, I hope we finally win the gold. It's a very difficult championship. We didn't succeed at the previous World Cup, but now we should enjoy what the guys have prepared for us," he added.

Bogdanovic also praised Denver Nuggets superstar and NBA's back-to-back MVP Nikola Jokic, saying that he makes his teammates two times better.

"Our attack is incredible with Jokic dominating in every aspect," Bogdanovic noted. "We know they have to double him, and he finds players very easily. We will make shots, we are twice better around him. We just have to fix the defense in transition and turnovers."

Jokic showed his talents against Greece on Thursday when he ended up with 29 points (9/13 2PT, 2/3 3PT, 5/10 FT), 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, and 6 turnovers for 28 EFF.

However, Serbia's victory was shadowed by Vasilije Micic's injury. Despite such events, Bogdanovic praised Ognjen Jaramaz, who rose to the occasion.

"That's the sport. You have to be ready," Bogdanovic said about Micic's injury. "Jaramaz took advantage of the opportunity. Kudos to him, he deserved it. There's a lot of room for the others too. We really have a team. We've always been a team, but now we really do."

"What [Nikola] Kalinic and [Vladimir] Lucic did may not be visible in the statistics, but they spent their time helping and rotating on Giannis. Everything starts with the team. It is very nice to watch our basketball from the sidelines. I enjoyed it. It was phenomenal," Bogdanovic added.

Asked about the favorites of the upcoming EuroBasket, Bogdanovic picked safe choices but gave the edge to Luka Doncic's Slovenia.

"I didn't watch many friendly games. Like every year: Slovenians are number one, in my opinion. France, Lithuanians are always difficult, they have a [good] team, they are strong. EuroBasket is very difficult, there are no bad teams. It is really difficult to get a medal. We will see, each of those teams can win it," Bogdanovic concluded.

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