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Phoenix Suns get confirmation: no Bogdan Bogdanovic for at least a year

The first I heard this was from John Gambodoro of arizonasports.com and 98.7 FM.

Then Paul Coro of azcentral.com and Arizona Republic reported it also.

Bogdan will stay with the Fenerbahce Ulker as one of the best players on one of the best teams in Europe. Fenerbahce lost the Euroleague championship game just last month. Fenerbahce followed that up by winning the Turkish League championship handily.

At the moment, Bogdanovic is one of the best players for his national team, Serbia, as they fight through a difficult Olympic qualifying tournament to try to make it to the Rio Olympics.

We've written several times here that it's in Bogdan's best interest financially to stay in Europe for another year. The best the Suns could have done this year was approximate Bogdan's current salary in Europe while forcing him to contribute (due to league rules) to his own buyout from his contract.

The Suns will retain exclusive rights to Bogdan joining the NBA. So whenever he wants to join the NBA, he's got to go through the Suns.

The Suns, starting next year, will still be limited to how much they can pay toward a contract buyout ($650,000) but otherwise will not be encumbered by the rookie salary cap in contract offers.

The Suns can offer Bogdan a contract next year anywhere from a minimum of what he could have made as a first-round #28 overall pick to a maximum of the max salary for a 0-6 year NBA player (25% of next year's probable $104 million salary cap).

So, anywhere from $1 - $25 million per year.

Now you know why he's waiting till next year.

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