Andrew Bogut felt like he had just been run over by a truck.
David Harrison, the 126kg Indiana Pacers center, lowered his shoulder and buried the NBA's No. 1 draft pick, then softly laid in a bucket.
Welcome to the NBA, Mr. Bogut.
"He was grinding me out down there," Bogut said. "Definitely a guy I can learn off. He definitely took me to school."
The Milwaukee Bucks center was ejected from that game on Monday at the Minnesota summer league for tussling with center John Edwards. But Bogut bounced back on Tuesday, capping the five-day event with 16 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks in a 98-91 loss to New York.
It was an interesting few days for the Australian in his NBA debut. One day, he scores 21 points and grabs 13 rebounds in a game against the Houston Rockets. The next, he is thoroughly dominated by Harrison before being thrown out by the officials.
It's all part of the process, Bogut says.
"It was more of a learning experience than anything," he said. "I didn't come in and say I want to average 20 and 10. I wasn't worried about numbers."
In five games, Bogut averaged 13.2 points and 10 rebounds, numbers that were slightly skewed thanks to a surprisingly quick trigger by the officials in the Indiana game. He finished with just 6 points on 1-of-7 shooting in 26 minutes in that game.
a big white guy
He still managed to lead the summer league in rebounds and learned what life in the NBA is like as a 2.16m, 114kg target.
"Definitely," Bogut said. "That's how it is. A big white guy, the No. 1 pick, nobody likes that."
Many of the rookies and unproven veteran centers at the league saw Bogut as a way to get noticed, perhaps none more than Harrison.
The second-year player went right at Bogut early and often in their matchup, hitting turnaround jumpers and dunking over the exasperated rookie.
"He's not a [traditional center]," the bruising Harrison said. "He's a typical triangle-type center. I just knew that if I got him on my back, I was stronger than him."
Harrison proved that on numerous occasions in the first half of their game, scoring 14 points to Bogut's 5 and getting him to commit four fouls.
His frustration growing, Bogut was ejected in the third quarter after getting tangled with Edwards, who appeared to shove him to the ground under the basket. Bogut bounced off the court and went after Edwards and the two players had to be separated.
It was a questionable decision by the officials to eject both players, but Bogut took everything in stride.
"I needed the rest anyway," he said, cracking a grin.
Milwaukee assistant Bob Ociepka saw the skirmish as a good sign.
"He gets knocked down, gets right back up and is not going to take anything from anybody," Ociepka said. "In this league, as a rookie, you're going to be tested and he showed his toughness to come right back at somebody. That was encouraging."
Harrison said he has no doubt that Bogut will be just fine in the NBA.
"He just doesn't know any better. He'll get better with time. Everybody does," Harrison said. "He's a good passer and he has really good body movement."
Ociepka said he can't wait to see what Bogut can do with the likes of Michael Redd, Bobby Simmons and Jiri Welsch on the perimeter to draw attention away from the big man.
"He has a good understanding of the game and that, combined with his talent, is real encouraging," Ociepka said. "This is a heckuva start for him. We're really excited about it."
For now, it's back to Australia for Bogut, who said he plans to concentrate on improving his jumper and adding some weight so he can bang with the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming under the basket.
And with the Bucks sinking serious money into Redd, Simmons and Welsch this offseason, Bogut sees good things happening in Milwaukee, and soon.
"They want to win," Bogut said. "It's a good situation to be in. I like the direction we're going."
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
Switzerland’s Riola Xhemaili on Thursday scored a last-gasp goal to salvage a dramatic 1-1 draw with Finland that sent the joyous hosts through to the quarter-finals at Euro 2025, and heartbroken Finland home. Switzerland, who needed only a draw to advance based on goal-difference, finished second in Group A behind Norway to go through to the knockout round for the first time and are to face the winners of Group B, which would be world champions Spain as things stand. “I think we set ourselves a goal on the pitch, to write history, to go into the knockout stages, which we’ve never
RSS