‘The nicest human I’ve ever met’: Boban Marjanovic, the NBA’s best teammate由Mavs.Ben 发表在Big D https://bbs.hupu.com/688
Everyone loves Boban Marjanovic. Why wouldn’t they? Ever since entering the league with the San Antonio Spurs in 2015, Marjanovic has exuded his wholesome personality and sincere charisma even while being traded team to team, something that has only continued since joining the Dallas Mavericks on a two-year contract last summer. It’s inevitable fans will root for a 7’4 bench player, but Marjanovic is beloved for far more than his on-court play. Perhaps his personality can best be summarized by a post-game interview last year, when a beaming Marjanovic acted like he had never been in front of a camera before. “This is amazing,” he said earnestly. “First time on television! Hi mom, hi dad, hi family. I’m here in Dallas.”
As Marjanovic has won over fans watching from afar, he has done the same with his teammates, coaches, trainers, staffers and, frankly, every single person within his orbit. Truly, Marjanovic must be one of the most beloved individuals in sports. When interviewees were contacted for this story, they frequently replied with an enthusiastic “yes,” followed by, “anything for Boban.” From the lowest-level staffer to the highest basketball official, everyone in any organization that Marjanovic has played for has memorable stories or glowing reviews to share about him. Including his first head coach in the NBA.
“(He’s) hard to get along with, no sense of humor, horrible teammate, never works on his game, un-coachable,” Gregg Popovich says in a trademark deadpan. “Just destroys a locker room, a cancer.” Finally, he can’t keep the ruse up: “No, he’s one of the all-time great guys, and you all know that.”
Why? What follows is nine reasons, in the words of nearly 30 people who have spent time around him, that prove Marjanovic is the best teammate in the entire league.
Boban … is the nicest person
Tobias Harris, best friend (2015-present): His personality, I think, is really his biggest thing.
Matt Bonner, Spurs teammate (2015-16): He’s huge in stature, but he’s even bigger in personality.
Jon Leuer, Pistons teammate (2016-18): Pretty quickly, you could tell that he’s never had a bad day in his life.
T.J. McConnell, Sixers teammate (2019): I probably sound like a broken record, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that guy have a bad day.
Marcus Morris, Pistons teammate (2016-17): You get to have a bad day. That’s normal. It just seems like Boban never does.
Stan Van Gundy, his Pistons head coach (2016-18): In the offseason, he was there working out and my wife’s nieces and nephew were there. They were very young at the time. Of course, they are in awe of Boban. I introduce them to him, and I get called away for literally two minutes, and (when I come back), literally, he’s got one of them up on his head and the other two on his shoulders – you know, like he had known them forever. They still talk about meeting Boban.
Aaron Gray, his Pistons assistant coach (2016-18): He comes in with hugs, with handshakes, and his hugs are a little bit different than everybody else’s. He swallows you up.
Ryan Broekhoff, Mavericks teammate (2019-2020): He (will) go make meaningful conversations with anybody. I think he’s just looking for someone to talk to. He’s great at connecting with people and really getting to know people on a deeper level.
Mark Cuban, Mavericks governor (2000-present): He yucks it up with everybody and anybody. He’s immediately your best friend.
Austin Rivers, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He’s genuine. There’s a lot of guys who are nice to you, (but) you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or not, or if he’s just trying to do his part and play the politician role. Boban’s love is genuine. And that’s why people like him so much; that’s why he has a bond with everybody. That’s just what it is. When he’s nice to you or he asks questions about your mom, your dad, he’s genuinely asking. People don’t just do that, you know, in this league. Everybody’s so caught up with themselves.
Frank Kaminsky, literally only went on a Basketball Without Borders trip with him (2018): There’s a reason why well-liked people become fan favorites – because they’re just genuinely good people.
Gregg Popovich, his Spurs head coach (2015-16): He’s a special, caring, loving, upbeat guy. And he’s a better player than everyone thinks. But you couldn’t ask for a better professional, a better teammate, for sure.
Anthony Tolliver, Pistons teammate (2017-18): Literally the nicest human being I’ve ever met.
Boban … is the hardest worker
Leuer: Players (respect) him because he comes in and actually works his ass off.
Rick Carlisle, his Mavericks head coach (2019-present): We (have) to kick Boban out of the gym. Literally almost every day, he would overdo it almost every day.
Van Gundy: We never actually banned him or locked him out, but we definitely had to talk to him about doing too much.
Bonner: Like, it got to the point where the Spurs, we have days off where even if you wanna come in, the coaching staff wants everyone to stay away from the gym for a day and take a breather. Escape. Rest. Take your mind off basketball since it’s such a long season. And Boban, because he would not accept this and would still come in and workout for hours on end, they would have to literally lock down the gym so he couldn’t get in to force him to take a break.
Gray: He wanted to lift, he wanted a conditioning workout, he wanted a basketball workout. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Maxi Kleber, Mavericks teammate (2019-present): Eventually, our coaching staff will be out of ideas of what to do with him because he just wants to, like, “What else can I do? Can I do this?” He just doesn’t get tired.
Broekhoff: I would talk to the strength and conditioning coaches, and he’s bugging (them), like, he wants to use this (certain) machine. (They tell him), “Bobi, you just did it this morning. You don’t need to do it twice in one day.”
Mike Scott, Clippers and Sixers teammate (2018-19): I’m pretty sure his body fat’s like five, six percent. He’s cut, he works out. He’s not like a fat 300 pounds, he’s muscle.
Cuban: The one thing that was the most shocking about Boban was the first time I saw him take off his shirt. He is ripped.
Gray: Me and Malik Allen, one of us would work him out before practice, the other would work him out after practice and then once things kinda got settled down, me and Malik would go back to our office, and we’d write down our notes from the practice. … Boban would come out, and he would have stolen the shooting coach. And him and the shooting coach would hide while we would be walking across to go to the cafeteria. And when we’re in the cafeteria, we’d hear the ball bouncing again, and he would be out there shooting with the shooting coach.
Danilo Gallinari, Clippers teammate (2018-19): We were supposed to (have) lunch together, you’re thinking you have practice at 11 and maybe have lunch around 1:30, 2 o’clock, and I’m at home waiting and waiting, and he calls me at 4:30 saying, “I’m ready to go to lunch.” And I say, “I ate already brother, it’s 4:30.” It’s like that every day with him.
Leuer: You’ll have teammates who are too goofy, and when the time comes to work, they don’t have that switch to flip. And he does. He really enjoys the grind of the season, which I think makes him more liked.
Boban … is so skilled at basketball
Rivers: People forget Boban can really play.
Gray: He can do so much in such a little amount of time. He can change the game in just a few minutes, you know?
Dwight Powell, Mavericks teammate (2019-present): He has more skills than I think people realize: ball-handling skills, shooting touch, feel for the game, (being) able to find guys. His greatest strength is his size and his presence around the basket, but I think, to his credit, you can tell when you watch him in the game that he spent time working on all facets of the game.
Van Gundy: He’s not just getting by on size. This isn’t a guy who can only score on dunks and things like that.
Rivers: If he was in an era 10 years ago, Boban would be a big-time player. He’s just in an era where he’s 10 years too late. And he’s still in the league doing his thing, but make no mistake about it, if he was in 2003, 2006, Boban would be a force to be reckoned with.
Van Gundy: I’ve always wondered if I, you know, should’ve played him more. You get so concerned with the defensive end of the floor, but with what he can do offensively, I’m not sure we wouldn’t have been better off playing him more and dealing with whatever defensive problems came up.
Ish Smith, Pistons teammate (2016-18): I don’t hear anyone talking about how great of a teammate Kawhi Leonard is. They just say he can play. I don’t want to disrespect (Boban) in any manner about his game. He can play. He can play with the best of them.
Boban … hates flying
Harris: He’s the worst on the team plane. It’s freaking ridiculous.
Smith: He be trippin’ on the plane.
Morris: A guy who’s (that tall), you’ve got to be scared of something.
Harris: There’s been times where I felt like I was the parent in letting him know the plane is going to be OK. I remember one time I really did tell him, “If it’s going to crash, it’s going to crash.” And he almost really started to cry. And I was like, “Oh, man, he really does not like planes.”
Powell: Without fail, he will ask the flight attendant to have a conversation with the pilot about what the skies are like, the flight time, what we’re looking at in terms of landing conditions upon arrival.
Danny Green, Spurs teammate (2015-16): I used to sit next to him on the plane, and I had to help him with diversifying his movie selection and getting used to heights and flying, and not being scared of planes. We get our peanut butter and jellies, he’d watch the same movies over and over, laugh at them all day. But (if any) turbulence happens, he’d get very scared.
Harris: There will be times where the turbulence comes, and he’ll go over and tap me, and I’ll act like I’m sleeping. (Like), “I do not feel you tapping me right now.” Other times, I’ll be like, “It’s all good.” He’ll be like, [whisper voice] “No, it’s not good, it’s not good.” And then I’ll get up and walk to the front and the cockpit is closed, but I’ll go back and talk to the pilot and say, “He said it’s all good.” And he would believe me.
Kyle Anderson, Spurs teammate (2015-16): (Early his first season) I was drinking a can of ginger ale, and he asked me what it was. He had never had it before. I had let him have one, and every flight for the rest of the season, he ordered a ginger ale. He fell in love with ginger ale. I put him on to that.
Smith: He would ask for it on (every) plane.
Tolliver: I never even noticed that, but that’s true. Those very random memories do come back. “Eh, what do you want to drink?” Ginger ale, on the plane, every time.
Boban … is very large
Harris: Somebody with that height, you have to imagine all his life he’s gone through God knows what.
John “Kong” Coumoundouros, his Pistons equipment manager (2016-18): When he first came to Detroit he was wearing a coat that came up (past his waist) and all that, and I said, “We’ve got to get him a 4XL double tall coat.” And he said, “I don’t know if I can get one.” … I was able to get him his first winter coat that actually fit him. He was so happy.
Harris: We get an Uber, and an Infiniti pulls up. I’m like, “We can’t get in there. He can’t get in there.”
Leuer: I remember sometimes someone got an Uber, and it wasn’t even that small of a car, but it was a Taurus or something, and it drove up and he just started walking away. Like, “No, no, I cannot fit.” And we’re like, “No, Boban, we’ll make it work. We’ll move the seat up.” So he was always leery of the Uber cars.
Kaminsky: The first time I ever played against Boban, we were playing in San Antonio. Tyler Hansbrough was on my team at the time. … And Boban checks into the game, and he’s standing next to him at the free-throw line, and I’m trying to talk to him, but Tyler’s standing there staring up at him, like, This is the biggest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Literally, there’s a video, I’m standing on that side of the lane trying to get his attention, he’s just standing there, like, [Kaminsky pauses, leans back, looks upwards, mouth agape, miming what Hansbrough looked like].
Leuer: I remember we were on the road somewhere in practice, we were practicing in not, like, a super-nice gym. And Boban went up to dunk, and the rim got stuck at an angle after he dunked. It was angled down, probably just two or three inches. Van Gundy was like, “This messes up practice. We’ve got to fix this.” And Boban was like, “No, no, coach. I got this.” And he walks up to it, doesn’t even jump, and just pushes the rim back up to its place. And everybody stopped for like five seconds and then just started cracking up laughing because nobody should be able to just walk up to a rim and push it back into its place.
Smith: Boban, he embraces it. (Like), “This is who I am. I’m 7’4. And I embrace who I am. I love it. My personality is infectious,” and everyone, like I said, loves to be around him. He’s got a great spirit.
McConnell: I vividly remember (a stranger) going up to him and being like, “How tall are you?” And he’s like, “I’m only 6’5.”
Leuer: (He’s) as comfortable as any 7’4 person in history has been in their own skin.
Boban … uses too many emojis
Gray: One thing you need to talk about: his inappropriate emojis.
Andrew Loomis, Pistons chief of staff (2014-present): (He uses) a lot of them. What’s the one? Up top. That’s his favorite one. 🔝
Gray: He’ll send you hearts, broken hearts, heart eyes – you’ll have 11 texts from Boban, and there won’t be any words. It’ll be a collage, and me and Malik Allen will sit there and tell him, like, “Boban, we don’t want the googly heart eyes, you know? Yeah, we love ya, but we’ve got to draw a line somewhere.” And he just loves it. He just knows stuff like that, he’ll do it even more. He’ll warm up, and then he’ll go back to the locker room, and he’ll text you heart eyes from the locker room pre-game, and you’re like, “Come on, Boban, what’s going on?”
Powell: People in America underuse emojis compared to the rest of the world. … Everybody outside of America uses them a little more.
Kleber: That’s how you learn in Europe.
Patty Mills, Spurs teammate (2015-16): It’s a good universal language, emojis.
Boban … thinks he’s a point guard
Kleber: He’s a point guard trapped in a center’s body.
Jerome Robinson, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He can pass, he can see over everything, he gets you open.
Kleber: He wants to run down, set up the offense, shoot 3s and all that.
Broekhoff: He gets pretty much any rebound (in practice pickup games) and doesn’t mind bringing the ball up the court and showing his ball-handling skills.
Gray: He’ll throw a no-look pass, he’ll get out on the break, I mean, it’s happened in the game a few times, and it’s funny because people know it’s coming. He’ll start apologizing in the middle of a film session, like, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, go, next clip, go ahead, next clip.” You know, Stan Van Gundy would just start laughing. The (coaches) would just be like, “Alright, Boban, let’s reel it back in.” But you’ve got to give a guy like that the freedom to have some fun.
Kaminsky: It’s a joke around the league. The Serbs, they’re so tall that they don’t have any guards. You got him, (Nikola) Jokic, (Nemanja) Bjelica – all the Serbs are really tall. … I have Serbian roots in my family. So I tell him, “What’s up, my Serbian brother!” I told him he can play shooting guard, and I’ll be his point guard.
Leuer: They have that term, point forward? Point Boban. I would pay to see that.
Boban … was killed by John Wick
Scott: (He) got his ass whooped in John Wick 3. First person to die.
Gray: Like, come on Boban, I thought you were going to give us tall people a better name than that?
Tolliver: That’s one of the coolest things ever, that he’s in a movie and fighting. That was really cool. I actually got a chance to see it on an airplane, and I was, like, “Wow, that’s Boban.”
Loomis: I watched that scene in John Wick 3 with the assassin, and I hit my wife – she was kinda sleeping – (and) I’m like, “Oh my God, Boban just got killed by a book!” And I just think it’s perfect that he got killed by a book in that movie.
Gray: How does a guy as big as you die from a book?
Avery Bradley, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He said when he did it, he felt like he did a terrible job. He felt like he was doing everything wrong. Keanu Reeves was helping him, telling him to make it more natural, but he said he felt like he was doing a terrible job. Then when he watched it at the premiere, he was, like, “Alright, I don’t look that bad.” When I watched it, I thought the same thing.
Loomis: We look at some of the commercials he did in San Antonio, and, you know, he pretty much took those commercials and turned it into a cameo in John Wick.
Broekhoff: He’s a big movie star, (with the word) “big” underlined.
Boban … is always Boban
Bradley: His swag is on a different level. He’s like the most swagged-out seven-footer I know.
Scott: He’s always saying little sneaky funny shit.
Powell: Bobi has this laugh that he’ll use from time to time when someone says a joke, or he says a joke. And I think one out of three times he uses it, it just echoes. Everyone who hears it, they’ll repeat it. And then the whole circle will end up laughing. It’s this specific laugh. It’s like a giant’s laugh. [deep voice] Hoh, hoh, hoh. And then everyone just starts echoing it.
Tolliver: He doesn’t just sit on the bench and pout because he’s not playing. He legitimately cares about everybody else and everybody else doing well.
Kleber: Let’s say I got subbed out, and I wasn’t happy with myself, (I was) a little bit mad at myself, he would talk to you, like, “Hey, you did a good job.”
Smith: Everybody wants to be around Boban, and it’s true. You just want to be around him.
Van Gundy: The guy gets no privacy, yet the way he responds to people is so good and with such generosity and such kindness to people. You would think at some point you would get really, really tired of it, and he may, but he certainly never shows that and I never even heard him convey that. It’s genuine. He’s not out there faking it, and then walking around saying, “I’m really tired of this shit with everybody bugging me.” I think he genuinely enjoys being around people.
Loomis: I’m gonna text him right now and tell him I was thinking about him, and it made me happy.
Gray: Man, I cried when that dude got traded. He just changes you, man. He really does.
https://theathletic.com/1916610/2020/07/13/the-nicest-human-ive-ever-met-boban-marjanovic-the-nbas-best-teammate/
Everyone loves Boban Marjanovic. Why wouldn’t they? Ever since entering the league with the San Antonio Spurs in 2015, Marjanovic has exuded his wholesome personality and sincere charisma even while being traded team to team, something that has only continued since joining the Dallas Mavericks on a two-year contract last summer. It’s inevitable fans will root for a 7’4 bench player, but Marjanovic is beloved for far more than his on-court play. Perhaps his personality can best be summarized by a post-game interview last year, when a beaming Marjanovic acted like he had never been in front of a camera before. “This is amazing,” he said earnestly. “First time on television! Hi mom, hi dad, hi family. I’m here in Dallas.”
As Marjanovic has won over fans watching from afar, he has done the same with his teammates, coaches, trainers, staffers and, frankly, every single person within his orbit. Truly, Marjanovic must be one of the most beloved individuals in sports. When interviewees were contacted for this story, they frequently replied with an enthusiastic “yes,” followed by, “anything for Boban.” From the lowest-level staffer to the highest basketball official, everyone in any organization that Marjanovic has played for has memorable stories or glowing reviews to share about him. Including his first head coach in the NBA.
“(He’s) hard to get along with, no sense of humor, horrible teammate, never works on his game, un-coachable,” Gregg Popovich says in a trademark deadpan. “Just destroys a locker room, a cancer.” Finally, he can’t keep the ruse up: “No, he’s one of the all-time great guys, and you all know that.”
Why? What follows is nine reasons, in the words of nearly 30 people who have spent time around him, that prove Marjanovic is the best teammate in the entire league.
Boban … is the nicest person
Tobias Harris, best friend (2015-present): His personality, I think, is really his biggest thing.
Matt Bonner, Spurs teammate (2015-16): He’s huge in stature, but he’s even bigger in personality.
Jon Leuer, Pistons teammate (2016-18): Pretty quickly, you could tell that he’s never had a bad day in his life.
T.J. McConnell, Sixers teammate (2019): I probably sound like a broken record, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that guy have a bad day.
Marcus Morris, Pistons teammate (2016-17): You get to have a bad day. That’s normal. It just seems like Boban never does.
Stan Van Gundy, his Pistons head coach (2016-18): In the offseason, he was there working out and my wife’s nieces and nephew were there. They were very young at the time. Of course, they are in awe of Boban. I introduce them to him, and I get called away for literally two minutes, and (when I come back), literally, he’s got one of them up on his head and the other two on his shoulders – you know, like he had known them forever. They still talk about meeting Boban.
Aaron Gray, his Pistons assistant coach (2016-18): He comes in with hugs, with handshakes, and his hugs are a little bit different than everybody else’s. He swallows you up.
Ryan Broekhoff, Mavericks teammate (2019-2020): He (will) go make meaningful conversations with anybody. I think he’s just looking for someone to talk to. He’s great at connecting with people and really getting to know people on a deeper level.
Mark Cuban, Mavericks governor (2000-present): He yucks it up with everybody and anybody. He’s immediately your best friend.
Austin Rivers, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He’s genuine. There’s a lot of guys who are nice to you, (but) you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or not, or if he’s just trying to do his part and play the politician role. Boban’s love is genuine. And that’s why people like him so much; that’s why he has a bond with everybody. That’s just what it is. When he’s nice to you or he asks questions about your mom, your dad, he’s genuinely asking. People don’t just do that, you know, in this league. Everybody’s so caught up with themselves.
Frank Kaminsky, literally only went on a Basketball Without Borders trip with him (2018): There’s a reason why well-liked people become fan favorites – because they’re just genuinely good people.
Gregg Popovich, his Spurs head coach (2015-16): He’s a special, caring, loving, upbeat guy. And he’s a better player than everyone thinks. But you couldn’t ask for a better professional, a better teammate, for sure.
Anthony Tolliver, Pistons teammate (2017-18): Literally the nicest human being I’ve ever met.
Boban … is the hardest worker
Leuer: Players (respect) him because he comes in and actually works his ass off.
Rick Carlisle, his Mavericks head coach (2019-present): We (have) to kick Boban out of the gym. Literally almost every day, he would overdo it almost every day.
Van Gundy: We never actually banned him or locked him out, but we definitely had to talk to him about doing too much.
Bonner: Like, it got to the point where the Spurs, we have days off where even if you wanna come in, the coaching staff wants everyone to stay away from the gym for a day and take a breather. Escape. Rest. Take your mind off basketball since it’s such a long season. And Boban, because he would not accept this and would still come in and workout for hours on end, they would have to literally lock down the gym so he couldn’t get in to force him to take a break.
Gray: He wanted to lift, he wanted a conditioning workout, he wanted a basketball workout. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Maxi Kleber, Mavericks teammate (2019-present): Eventually, our coaching staff will be out of ideas of what to do with him because he just wants to, like, “What else can I do? Can I do this?” He just doesn’t get tired.
Broekhoff: I would talk to the strength and conditioning coaches, and he’s bugging (them), like, he wants to use this (certain) machine. (They tell him), “Bobi, you just did it this morning. You don’t need to do it twice in one day.”
Mike Scott, Clippers and Sixers teammate (2018-19): I’m pretty sure his body fat’s like five, six percent. He’s cut, he works out. He’s not like a fat 300 pounds, he’s muscle.
Cuban: The one thing that was the most shocking about Boban was the first time I saw him take off his shirt. He is ripped.
Gray: Me and Malik Allen, one of us would work him out before practice, the other would work him out after practice and then once things kinda got settled down, me and Malik would go back to our office, and we’d write down our notes from the practice. … Boban would come out, and he would have stolen the shooting coach. And him and the shooting coach would hide while we would be walking across to go to the cafeteria. And when we’re in the cafeteria, we’d hear the ball bouncing again, and he would be out there shooting with the shooting coach.
Danilo Gallinari, Clippers teammate (2018-19): We were supposed to (have) lunch together, you’re thinking you have practice at 11 and maybe have lunch around 1:30, 2 o’clock, and I’m at home waiting and waiting, and he calls me at 4:30 saying, “I’m ready to go to lunch.” And I say, “I ate already brother, it’s 4:30.” It’s like that every day with him.
Leuer: You’ll have teammates who are too goofy, and when the time comes to work, they don’t have that switch to flip. And he does. He really enjoys the grind of the season, which I think makes him more liked.
Boban … is so skilled at basketball
Rivers: People forget Boban can really play.
Gray: He can do so much in such a little amount of time. He can change the game in just a few minutes, you know?
Dwight Powell, Mavericks teammate (2019-present): He has more skills than I think people realize: ball-handling skills, shooting touch, feel for the game, (being) able to find guys. His greatest strength is his size and his presence around the basket, but I think, to his credit, you can tell when you watch him in the game that he spent time working on all facets of the game.
Van Gundy: He’s not just getting by on size. This isn’t a guy who can only score on dunks and things like that.
Rivers: If he was in an era 10 years ago, Boban would be a big-time player. He’s just in an era where he’s 10 years too late. And he’s still in the league doing his thing, but make no mistake about it, if he was in 2003, 2006, Boban would be a force to be reckoned with.
Van Gundy: I’ve always wondered if I, you know, should’ve played him more. You get so concerned with the defensive end of the floor, but with what he can do offensively, I’m not sure we wouldn’t have been better off playing him more and dealing with whatever defensive problems came up.
Ish Smith, Pistons teammate (2016-18): I don’t hear anyone talking about how great of a teammate Kawhi Leonard is. They just say he can play. I don’t want to disrespect (Boban) in any manner about his game. He can play. He can play with the best of them.
Boban … hates flying
Harris: He’s the worst on the team plane. It’s freaking ridiculous.
Smith: He be trippin’ on the plane.
Morris: A guy who’s (that tall), you’ve got to be scared of something.
Harris: There’s been times where I felt like I was the parent in letting him know the plane is going to be OK. I remember one time I really did tell him, “If it’s going to crash, it’s going to crash.” And he almost really started to cry. And I was like, “Oh, man, he really does not like planes.”
Powell: Without fail, he will ask the flight attendant to have a conversation with the pilot about what the skies are like, the flight time, what we’re looking at in terms of landing conditions upon arrival.
Danny Green, Spurs teammate (2015-16): I used to sit next to him on the plane, and I had to help him with diversifying his movie selection and getting used to heights and flying, and not being scared of planes. We get our peanut butter and jellies, he’d watch the same movies over and over, laugh at them all day. But (if any) turbulence happens, he’d get very scared.
Harris: There will be times where the turbulence comes, and he’ll go over and tap me, and I’ll act like I’m sleeping. (Like), “I do not feel you tapping me right now.” Other times, I’ll be like, “It’s all good.” He’ll be like, [whisper voice] “No, it’s not good, it’s not good.” And then I’ll get up and walk to the front and the cockpit is closed, but I’ll go back and talk to the pilot and say, “He said it’s all good.” And he would believe me.
Kyle Anderson, Spurs teammate (2015-16): (Early his first season) I was drinking a can of ginger ale, and he asked me what it was. He had never had it before. I had let him have one, and every flight for the rest of the season, he ordered a ginger ale. He fell in love with ginger ale. I put him on to that.
Smith: He would ask for it on (every) plane.
Tolliver: I never even noticed that, but that’s true. Those very random memories do come back. “Eh, what do you want to drink?” Ginger ale, on the plane, every time.
Boban … is very large
Harris: Somebody with that height, you have to imagine all his life he’s gone through God knows what.
John “Kong” Coumoundouros, his Pistons equipment manager (2016-18): When he first came to Detroit he was wearing a coat that came up (past his waist) and all that, and I said, “We’ve got to get him a 4XL double tall coat.” And he said, “I don’t know if I can get one.” … I was able to get him his first winter coat that actually fit him. He was so happy.
Harris: We get an Uber, and an Infiniti pulls up. I’m like, “We can’t get in there. He can’t get in there.”
Leuer: I remember sometimes someone got an Uber, and it wasn’t even that small of a car, but it was a Taurus or something, and it drove up and he just started walking away. Like, “No, no, I cannot fit.” And we’re like, “No, Boban, we’ll make it work. We’ll move the seat up.” So he was always leery of the Uber cars.
Kaminsky: The first time I ever played against Boban, we were playing in San Antonio. Tyler Hansbrough was on my team at the time. … And Boban checks into the game, and he’s standing next to him at the free-throw line, and I’m trying to talk to him, but Tyler’s standing there staring up at him, like, This is the biggest guy I’ve ever seen in my life. Literally, there’s a video, I’m standing on that side of the lane trying to get his attention, he’s just standing there, like, [Kaminsky pauses, leans back, looks upwards, mouth agape, miming what Hansbrough looked like].
Leuer: I remember we were on the road somewhere in practice, we were practicing in not, like, a super-nice gym. And Boban went up to dunk, and the rim got stuck at an angle after he dunked. It was angled down, probably just two or three inches. Van Gundy was like, “This messes up practice. We’ve got to fix this.” And Boban was like, “No, no, coach. I got this.” And he walks up to it, doesn’t even jump, and just pushes the rim back up to its place. And everybody stopped for like five seconds and then just started cracking up laughing because nobody should be able to just walk up to a rim and push it back into its place.
Smith: Boban, he embraces it. (Like), “This is who I am. I’m 7’4. And I embrace who I am. I love it. My personality is infectious,” and everyone, like I said, loves to be around him. He’s got a great spirit.
McConnell: I vividly remember (a stranger) going up to him and being like, “How tall are you?” And he’s like, “I’m only 6’5.”
Leuer: (He’s) as comfortable as any 7’4 person in history has been in their own skin.
Boban … uses too many emojis
Gray: One thing you need to talk about: his inappropriate emojis.
Andrew Loomis, Pistons chief of staff (2014-present): (He uses) a lot of them. What’s the one? Up top. That’s his favorite one. 🔝
Gray: He’ll send you hearts, broken hearts, heart eyes – you’ll have 11 texts from Boban, and there won’t be any words. It’ll be a collage, and me and Malik Allen will sit there and tell him, like, “Boban, we don’t want the googly heart eyes, you know? Yeah, we love ya, but we’ve got to draw a line somewhere.” And he just loves it. He just knows stuff like that, he’ll do it even more. He’ll warm up, and then he’ll go back to the locker room, and he’ll text you heart eyes from the locker room pre-game, and you’re like, “Come on, Boban, what’s going on?”
Powell: People in America underuse emojis compared to the rest of the world. … Everybody outside of America uses them a little more.
Kleber: That’s how you learn in Europe.
Patty Mills, Spurs teammate (2015-16): It’s a good universal language, emojis.
Boban … thinks he’s a point guard
Kleber: He’s a point guard trapped in a center’s body.
Jerome Robinson, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He can pass, he can see over everything, he gets you open.
Kleber: He wants to run down, set up the offense, shoot 3s and all that.
Broekhoff: He gets pretty much any rebound (in practice pickup games) and doesn’t mind bringing the ball up the court and showing his ball-handling skills.
Gray: He’ll throw a no-look pass, he’ll get out on the break, I mean, it’s happened in the game a few times, and it’s funny because people know it’s coming. He’ll start apologizing in the middle of a film session, like, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, go, next clip, go ahead, next clip.” You know, Stan Van Gundy would just start laughing. The (coaches) would just be like, “Alright, Boban, let’s reel it back in.” But you’ve got to give a guy like that the freedom to have some fun.
Kaminsky: It’s a joke around the league. The Serbs, they’re so tall that they don’t have any guards. You got him, (Nikola) Jokic, (Nemanja) Bjelica – all the Serbs are really tall. … I have Serbian roots in my family. So I tell him, “What’s up, my Serbian brother!” I told him he can play shooting guard, and I’ll be his point guard.
Leuer: They have that term, point forward? Point Boban. I would pay to see that.
Boban … was killed by John Wick
Scott: (He) got his ass whooped in John Wick 3. First person to die.
Gray: Like, come on Boban, I thought you were going to give us tall people a better name than that?
Tolliver: That’s one of the coolest things ever, that he’s in a movie and fighting. That was really cool. I actually got a chance to see it on an airplane, and I was, like, “Wow, that’s Boban.”
Loomis: I watched that scene in John Wick 3 with the assassin, and I hit my wife – she was kinda sleeping – (and) I’m like, “Oh my God, Boban just got killed by a book!” And I just think it’s perfect that he got killed by a book in that movie.
Gray: How does a guy as big as you die from a book?
Avery Bradley, Clippers teammate (2018-19): He said when he did it, he felt like he did a terrible job. He felt like he was doing everything wrong. Keanu Reeves was helping him, telling him to make it more natural, but he said he felt like he was doing a terrible job. Then when he watched it at the premiere, he was, like, “Alright, I don’t look that bad.” When I watched it, I thought the same thing.
Loomis: We look at some of the commercials he did in San Antonio, and, you know, he pretty much took those commercials and turned it into a cameo in John Wick.
Broekhoff: He’s a big movie star, (with the word) “big” underlined.
Boban … is always Boban
Bradley: His swag is on a different level. He’s like the most swagged-out seven-footer I know.
Scott: He’s always saying little sneaky funny shit.
Powell: Bobi has this laugh that he’ll use from time to time when someone says a joke, or he says a joke. And I think one out of three times he uses it, it just echoes. Everyone who hears it, they’ll repeat it. And then the whole circle will end up laughing. It’s this specific laugh. It’s like a giant’s laugh. [deep voice] Hoh, hoh, hoh. And then everyone just starts echoing it.
Tolliver: He doesn’t just sit on the bench and pout because he’s not playing. He legitimately cares about everybody else and everybody else doing well.
Kleber: Let’s say I got subbed out, and I wasn’t happy with myself, (I was) a little bit mad at myself, he would talk to you, like, “Hey, you did a good job.”
Smith: Everybody wants to be around Boban, and it’s true. You just want to be around him.
Van Gundy: The guy gets no privacy, yet the way he responds to people is so good and with such generosity and such kindness to people. You would think at some point you would get really, really tired of it, and he may, but he certainly never shows that and I never even heard him convey that. It’s genuine. He’s not out there faking it, and then walking around saying, “I’m really tired of this shit with everybody bugging me.” I think he genuinely enjoys being around people.
Loomis: I’m gonna text him right now and tell him I was thinking about him, and it made me happy.
Gray: Man, I cried when that dude got traded. He just changes you, man. He really does.
https://theathletic.com/1916610/2020/07/13/the-nicest-human-ive-ever-met-boban-marjanovic-the-nbas-best-teammate/
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