The Bobinator is a cartoon figure created by a friend of Boban Marjanovic’s back in Serbia. The Bobinator’s green skin matches the Incredible Hulk’s, but his face and left arm — which is metallic and culminates not in a hand but in a hook that grabs a basketball — is a reference to his primary inspiration.
“Like Terminator,” Marjanovic said. “Shows power. You see my left hand’s like a machine — like the Terminator.”
It also implies size, of course, which is the first thing one notices about Marjanovic, who is 7 feet 3 inches and was once measured as having a 7-8 wingspan and a 9-7 standing reach. When Marjanovic, a 27-year-old rookie center, greets someone, the visitor’s hand is like a doorknob he is gently twisting open.
While the Bobinator, who is the avatar on Marjanovic’s Instagram account, wears the red-and-white-striped jersey of Red Star, the Belgrade-based basketball team on which Marjanovic played last off-season, Marjanovic now wears the silver and black of the San Antonio Spurs.
“I’m really living my dream,” he said in a recent interview.
Any Spurs player could be forgiven for pinching himself. Halfway through an NBA season dominated by the defending champion Golden State Warriors — who jumped to an unprecedented 28-0 start and were 41-4 through Tuesday — the Spurs’ season has been every bit as golden as the bridge depicted on the Warriors’ uniforms.
The Spurs were 38-7, are unbeaten at home and have a better point differential than the Warriors. If not for Stephen Curry, who is becoming, 3 points at a time, the new face of the NBA, Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard would probably be the leading contender for the Most Valuable Player Award.
Boban Mania, as the frenzied acclamation that seems to accompany Marjanovic’s every move has been labeled, has been one of the more attention-grabbing subplots of the Spurs’ season, and Marjanovic has become the NBA’s biggest star — physically, anyway — along with the New York Knicks’ 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis.
Although Boban Mania is indigenous to the Spurs’ AT&T Center, where Marjanovic’s entries are greeted by thunderous cheers, it has also cropped up in Brooklyn and Philadelphia, where Marjanovic’s stellar play in the final minutes of routs has earned applause from enemy crowds.
An unofficial Twitter account, @didbobanplay, answers the question posed by its name every time the Spurs play.
This month, dozens of fans, including a man with a sketch of Marjanovic shaved into his head, showed up for Marjanovic’s autograph-signing at a San Antonio restaurant.
While some of Marjanovic’s statistics are fantastic — he had the NBA’s third-highest player efficiency rating, just ahead of Russell Westbrook and behind Curry, entering Friday — they result from his playing sparingly, typically in blowouts against weaker opponents. In the Spurs’ 117-89 victory at Phoenix last Thursday, he had his first NBA double-double.
A large part of the draw is Marjanovic’s cheerful personality and, perhaps, its contrast with the all-business demeanors of Spurs stars like Leonard or Tim Duncan, he of the fundamentals and flannel shirts.
Even as Marjanovic’s conspicuous dimensions have fed Boban Mania, they have also provided the foundation for its backlash. Late last month, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich expressed discomfort with the outsize affection for his outsize player, telling reporters: “I think the crowd, they really get a kick out of him and all that, but he’s a basketball player. He’s not some odd thing.”
The Spurs hope Marjanovic will become the latest iteration of an often-told tale: a barely known foreign player integrating into the Spurs’ balletic, European-inspired system. Manu Ginobili and Tiago Splitter, who is now with the Atlanta Hawks, had the same trajectories; the Spurs’ first-round draft pick last season was another Serbian center, Nikola Milutinov.
“Boban’s a force, man,” said David Blatt, who coached against Marjanovic several times in the Euroleague.
Blatt, who was fired as the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers last Friday, added: “I think that he’s acquitted himself well — better than many people were expecting. He’s on the right team for that.”
Marjanovic, for his part, has embraced the cheers.
“I’ve always been really happy when people support me, because it’s a big transition from Europe to here,” he said.
Marjanovic grew up in Serbia — “always one head taller than everybody,” he said — and started playing basketball with his friends when he was 13. Soon he was in a professional team’s system and qualifying for age-group national teams. His hero was the NBA player Vlade Divac, also a Serb, although because of Marjanovic’s size, he said, he was told to model himself after players like Yao Ming, Hakeem Olajuwon and Arvydas Sabonis, the 7-3 Lithuanian who entered the Hall of Fame after a long career that included two stints with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Marjanovic dominated the Serbian Super League, winning the MVP Award the last three years. Last season was his finest: He earned All-Euroleague first-team honors and helped Red Star win the Adriatic League title.
Over the summer, his contract with Red Star expired, and he reportedly chose the Spurs over several more lucrative offers abroad.
“I get the call, not thinking too much — this is my dream,” he said of joining the Spurs.
He was familiar with the team’s history of mining foreign talent. “I don’t know how they do it,” he said, “but they do it perfect.”
The way they do it could partly be seen toward the end of a morning shootaround at the team’s practice complex this month, several hours before a 99-95 victory over the Cavaliers.
At one basket, Marjanovic honed a movement-oriented play in which he received a pass in the low post, handed the ball to a cutting guard — in this case, the Spurs assistant coach Becky Hammon — and then popped out and got the ball back for a midrange shot. Matt Bonner, a reserve center in his 10th year with the team, looked on, critiquing Marjanovic’s execution. They were the last two players on the court.
Bonner, who called Marjanovic the team’s hardest worker, later explained that at an earlier walk-through, Marjanovic had failed to master that play before the team moved on to other things.
“I made a mental note so after practice we could go over it,” Bonner said.
That, Bonner added, is part of the Spurs way: “Guys who have been here helping newer guys as much as possible to assimilate and run the system.”
Marjanovic was all ears. “Every player has something you can take from them,” he said. “Because if they play basketball, they must be doing something.”
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