While he may have never really played, the NBA has reportedly lost an icon today to overseas basketball

I dare you to find a single person who hates Boban. In fact, he might be one of the rare universally beloved athletes regardless of the sport. He’s always come off as the ultimate vibes guy, his commercials are fantastic, and on the court whenever he was on the floor for those 2-3 minute shifts, he was dominant.

OK, maybe “dominant” is taking it a little too far, but I guess that’s really in the eye of the beholder. If you look at his Per 36 numbers, they seem pretty dominant to me

Granted any time you have to go the Per 36 route it usually means the player actually isn’t all that good, but I will not tolerate any Boban slander in this blog. I always felt that if he could just get his conditioning right there was a role for him at the NBA level, simply because of how massive he is. But now at age 35, those days look to be pretty much over.

The good news is the dream of Boban returning one day to the NBA is still alive by a thread given how his contract is structured

so if you’re a team that gets to December and ends up needing big man depth and an injection of supreme vibes, Boban is your guy.

This news also made me think of Boban’s final NBA moment, which in my opinion is up there with some of the greatest performances in NBA history. Sure you have moments like that time Kobe Bryant (RIPIP) went out and scored 60 points in his final NBA game which was cool and all, but that doesn’t even come close to gifting 18,000 fans free chicken

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When I say Boban is a legend, this is why. He gets it. Nobody cares about his random late 4th quarter FTs in the last game of the season. Those might be the two most forgettable FTs of the year for a team that was not going to make the playoffs. So what did he do? He took that opportunity to reward the people with free chicken. A move that was so perfectly Boban, it doesn’t get much better than that. A true man of the people and why I said it’s impossible to hate him.

So while it may seem like this is a goodbye to Boban, my fingers are crossed that it’s more of a “see you later” type of thing. The NBA world needs Boban involved at some point of the 2024-25 season, even if it’s just for the memes and the free chicken. You can’t tell me every backup center on an NBA roster is better than Boban, so I eagerly await his eventual return.