Indiana Pacers forward has seen the glimpses of an European-style coach in Nate McMillan, a resemblance that has helped his game in the last few seasons under his helm.
The sharpshooter has adjusted beautifully to McMillan's style of play, putting together the two best scoring seasons of his career under him.
“(McMillan)'s a lot like European coaches. That's good for me,” said Bogdanovic, who is averaging career-highs across the board with 16.8 points on 49.4 percent shooting from the field and 42.6 percent from deep, according to J. Michael of USA TODAY Sports. “They're tough. They're cursing at you, forcing you to do more, especially in practice. I think that’s the difference between us and the other NBA teams.
“There’s a lot of coaches around this league like, ‘Everything is good,' and it's not. But he’s honest with all of us. That’s what I love.”
McMillan is an old school coach that got his first shot as coach of the now-defunct Seattle SuperSonics, whom he played for during his entire 12-year NBA career.
The coach has also grown within the organization, first as an assistant for three seasons before taking over the helm in 2016 at the wake of Frank Vogel's dismissal from the team.
Detail-focused, no-nonsense and hard-nosed are all adjectives that describe McMillan as a coach — adjectives that fit most successful European coaches, ones Bogdanovic had grown used to before breaking into the NBA in 2011.
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