Bobi’s World is back! and misunderstood
Things haven’t been great in Bobi’s World as of late.
In the Sixers’ recent contest against the New Orleans Pelicans, with Philly up by three, Jrue Holiday drove the lane and tried to pass the ball inside, but found it deflected by the mile-long arms of Boban Marjanovic. As Bobi wrestled for the ball, his legs became entangled with two Pelicans. All three hit the deck. Bobi was the only one who didn’t get up.
As our beloved behemoth lay, writhing in pain, people began to fear the worst. After the game, Brett Brown described it as one of those injuries that make your heart sink. After watching Boban roll on the ground clutching his knee, I could feel my heart drop to my toes.
Two Sixers would need to help carry Bobi off the court as he struggled to support his own weight. By the immediate look of the injury, it seemed as though Boban’s season could already be coming to an end.
Thankfully, a major crisis was averted.
Boban had suffered a bone bruise and mild sprain in his right knee. Our big baby Bobi is going to be just fine!
The team announced yesterday, Boban will be available to play in today’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. This news comes a day after Joel Embiid made his return to the team after being held out since the All Star break with tendonitis in his right knee. Boban’s availability should give the Sixers a chance to rest Embiid a bit against one of the league’s worst teams.
Prior to the team’s update on their Serbian gargantuan’s status, we got a glimpse into the struggles of being Bobi. On Sunday, Bleacher Report released a story highlighting the hardships of being a seven foot center. Despite playing a dying position, Boban seems to take everything in stride, even though people treat him like a circus sideshow.
The article featured some classic Boban quips, like his explanation for his height despite having two parents, under 5’10:
“Basically, I come from other planet,” Marjanovic says. “Like Superman, from Krypton. I don’t show my power because I want to play basketball. I will”—and here he makes a whistling flying noise—”fly off when I retire.”
Boban also explains how he manages the struggles of sitting in a window seat on plane rides:
Traveling is trouble, too. When he was playing professionally in Europe, Boban had a strategy for switching to an exit-row seat if the team didn’t secure one for him. He’d walk to the exit row and stand as contortedly as he could. Then he’d ask, starting with the passenger in the window seat on one side and moving from person to person across the aisle until someone was sympathetic enough to swap seats. “They would give me like 80 percent of the time,” he says.
The article does a good job of humanizing Boban and these giant basketball players because all they really want is to be treated like everyone else. So the next time you see a giant walking down the street, think before you ask for a picture of their hands, it’s all they ask.
I found one of the most interesting pieces of the article to be that over the last three season, seven foot big men saw their playing time drop significantly once the postseason begins. This stems from teams using smaller lineups more often in an attempt to exploit matchups.
Boban is going to be important down the stretch in order to get Embiid some rest, but we can’t assume the team will lean on him heavily in the playoffs. That’s why his injury may have been somewhat of a blessing in disguise because it gave the team a chance to play around with their more-athletic, underdeveloped big men, Jonah Bolden and Justin Patton.
With the team now sitting in the third seed and the NBA’s fifth easiest schedule the rest of the season, now is the time to be focusing on health and building chemistry with this still very new group of people. Having a healthy Boban will help on both fronts.
Get ready Philadelphia because its a big day. Boban is coming home!
*Bonus Bobi*
I know Boban says he doesn’t enjoy people gawking at his hands BUT LOOK AT BOBAN’S HANDS!
Oh my. pic.twitter.com/JZI2nLU8iC
— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) February 23, 2019
For more Boban hand pictures, check out the subreddit!
