Boban Marjanović
Fenerbahçe

Player Facts

Height: 7'4"
Weight: 290lbs.

Wingspan: 7'8"

Date of Birth:
Aug. 15, 1988
College Experience: N/A

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 1
Physical Strength: 10
Positional Size: 10
Positional Wingspan: 10
Paint Scoring: 10
Midrange Scoring: 2
Three-Point Scoring: 2
Dribbling: 1
Passing: 1
Perimeter Defense: 1
Interior Defense: 10
Rebounding: 10

Embed from Getty Images

JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro - More than a Meme

> Paving the Way

> Absolute Unit

> Oh, So He's Actually Good

> What are you Doing, Shooting it Near Boban?

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

*All short clips courtesy of Smart Highlights (YouTube)

*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

*Physical measurements courtesy of NBAdraft.net

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STRENGTHS

Intro - More than a Meme

For this profile and this profile only, I'm gonna speak from the heart. Forget the fancy statistics, forget the complex analytics. Let's go with the battle-tested "eye-test". Every basketball fan's first experience with the sport is through the eye test, and with some players, it should stay that way.

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Paving the Way

The guy is just a behemoth on the court. In a league where the average player stands around 6'7", Boban is literally head and shoulders above most people on the court. You almost have time to go make yourself a sandwich by the time someone gets around a Boban screen.

The Serbian pivot impressively gave you 1.7 screen assists per night in his minuscule 9.6 2019-2020 minutes per game. Per 36 minutes, his 2020-2021 figure was a seventh-best 7.0. At this comparable minutes mark, that figure proved higher than Steven Adams, Nikola Vucevic, Bam Adebayo, and Jonas Valanciunas.

Sure, he isn't going to scream down the lane on a dive but go and ask any of his ball-handlers if they care. From Lou Williams to Tobias Harris (his BFF, per a source) and Luka Doncic, Boban has cleared the runway like one can imagine he clears out the team breakfast buffet.

Absolute Unit

I told myself that I don't deserve any e-mail subscribers if I left out a physical dimensions-based section. So here it is.

Marjanovic's last reputable measurements were recorded at the 2009 Eurocamp. He was a baby faced-21-year-old back then, a somewhat disturbing image when you realize that face was atop a titanic build. Alas, there is a strict zero slander policy at Basketball Beacon in place for the "Bobinator".

I'll give you this, the 4.48 second 3/4 court sprint speed measured isn't Usain Bolt-esque. Fine, I'll also give you the fact that his absolute, life-depends-on-it vertical is a rough 23 inches. But name a player whose outstretched fingertips fall just five sweet inches shy of the rim. Find me another guy that's 290 pounds of pure Serbian greatness. Impossible.

Oh, So he's Actually Good

On a semi-serious note, the man is actually quite effective with his small role in the NBA. Scratch that, if we lived in a world where he got 36 minutes of play time (which I wish for daily at 11:11 a.m. and p.m. Eastern) he'd be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Feast your peepers on Bobi's per-36 stats. In 2018-2019, he provided 22.3 points and 14 boards on nearly 62% shooting. He followed that up with 24.7 and 16.8 in Dallas the next year. It's borderline criminal stuff we're talking about.

The classic argument that enables these coaches to underutilize Boban as they do is that "his stamina doesn't allow for it". To that I say, screw it. Play the guy 36 minutes and see what happens. He contributes to winning, stuffs the stat sheet, and puts butts in seats.

If I was hanging off a cliff over a bottomless abyss I'd want Boban's 7'8" wingspan and giant mitts to help me up. Similarly, if I needed one NBA basket in traffic, I dump it off to Boban. Is the fact that he virtually doesn't need to jump to dunk not enough for you? What about his 77.6% efficiency at the rim in 2019-2020?

He's more than his dunks. He's a talented actor, an impeccable locker room presence, and a delight to the media. On the court, he can give you a little post-up hook shot against shorter players (which is all of them), up over 53% in both 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 on these.

The real question is, as a teammate of Boban's, why wouldn't you shoot it? Oh, his 5.6 offensive rebounds per 36 in 2019-2020 isn't good enough? His 90th percentile status on putbacks that year insufficient? Naysayers, take a look in the mirror and ruminate.

What are you Doing, Shooting it Near Boban?

On defense, you might want to elude the man they (I) call the Eastern European Enigma. It might just benefit you to not go up in the general vicinity of the player with a wingspan that is rivaled only by his surname in length. It could be in your best interest to just settle for that heavily contested 18-footer.

When you get blocked without your opponent leaving the ground, it's a different kind of pain. It's a much deeper, longer-lasting pain that could launch you into a prolonged state of introspection. Why did I pick this sport, what am I doing here? The catalyst of that existential crisis is spelled B-O-B-A-N M-A-R-J-A-N-O-V-I-C.

Shoutout to r/bobanholdingthings.

WEAKNESSES

You came to the wrong place for that.

Players Appearing Here – Check Out Their Profiles
bacon
Beacon Bacon

Boban went iso against Keanu Reeves in John Wick 3 and lost, his first sign of weakness on record