Remembering a Play: When Boban Gifted Los Angeles Free Chicken

“Everybody loves Boban” said Los Angeles Clippers star Paul George on his podcast. Nuggets center DeAndre Jordan agreed, asserting “he knows that he’s being funny, but he also don’t know.”

This remembering a play is the latter, as we celebrate failure for the first time in this series’ history.

I launched this semi-regular feature with the debut of Splinter sports as a tribute to Deadspin’s Remembering a Guy that etched itself into the culture, and while it began as a weekly column when we launched, I never wanted to keep that regular format. The spirit of remembering guys and plays is you just…remember them. Things happen, your brain reaches back into its memory hole, and sometimes it pulls out a gem.

The thing that happened is that Boban Marjanovic has signed with Fenerbahce Beko in Turkey to play basketball next year, presumably ending his time in the NBA. This made me hearken back to the last famed act of Boban’s NBA career, which summarizes the joy the 7’4” Serbian giant brings to everything he touches.

The Los Angeles Clippers have a promotion where if an opposing player misses two free throws in a row, the fans get free chicken from Chick-fil-A. Boban checked in at the start of the 4th quarter, grabbed four rebounds and hit all five of his shots, including a free throw attempt across the first six minutes of his final NBA quarter. With 4:44 remaining in the last, meaningless game of the season, Boban stepped to the line and bricked his first of two free throws, sending the crowd into a mild frenzy. Boban instantly commanded the entire arena, pointing to himself and letting everyone know in his former city that he was voluntarily ending his hot streak, and that “I’ve got you.”

What a fucking legend, man. He brought us famed moments like making Dwight Howard look like a small child, and proving Anthony Davis is literally too small for him, to coming off the bench to help tiny 7’3” Kristaps Porzingis retrieve a ball stuck up above the basket (twice), along with countless other hilarious hijinks, proving himself to be one of this era’s great physical comedians.

Boban Marjanovic might be the most self-aware 7’10” wingspan in human history, and while he was never as dominant a player as his size suggests, he was still a solid rotation player who could come in and provide rebounding and rim protection for around ten minutes a night, all while spreading happiness and laughter to every part of the league. If this is Boban’s NBA sendoff, then he can safely say he had one of the most successful NBA careers of the 21st century, proving that there is more to life than basketball, like free chicken.