On April 24, 2024, the Houston Rockets played the Los Angeles Clippers in the poorly-named Crypto.com Arena for their final game of the season. The game meant little; the Rockets had already been eliminated from playoff contention while the Clippers had successfully secured the No. 4 seed. At the start of the fourth quarter, with the Rockets holding a two-point lead, Boban Marjanovic entered the game, ultimately scoring 13 points in just 12 minutes. 

However, the story from the game wasn’t his performance, but rather a pair of his free throw attempts. At Clippers games, if a player misses two of two free throws in the fourth quarter, fans in attendance get a free Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. After missing the first, Boban grinned and said to the crowd, “chicken’s on me.” He missed the second and pointed to the sky as the grateful Crypto.com Arena crowd roared.

To the 20,000 fans there that day, and the millions across the country who celebrated his valiant action, Boban Marjanovic will be remembered as a man of the people. This is his legacy.

Yet, this is an incomplete reflection of his playing career. While basketball fans focus on his personality, they ignore a player who is a gem of a backup center. Player efficiency rating, or PER, is used as a simple statistic to quantify the efficiency of a player. The average NBA player has a PER of 15; the greats have numbers well in the 20s. Among centers, Nikola Jokic and Shaquille O’Neal lead the pack with PERs around 27 and 28. Boban’s career PER is 25.3.

This isn’t a mistake or a fluke. While he doesn’t get many minutes, he has played nearly 3,000 in his career, which is a large enough sample size. His PER has also been consistent by season, only dropping below 20 in 2021-22. His per 36 minutes stats are also incredibly impressive, at 22.8 points per game and 16.2 rebounds a game.

So why does he not get minutes? The answer is his perimeter defense. In an era where big men play farther and farther from the hoop, centers need to be more mobile on defense. Boban lacks the speed to defend away from the hoop, and other centers take advantage. When shooting from midrange or beyond the arc, opponents shoot nearly 15 effective field goal percentage points better against him than the average center.

So, Boban is stuck riding the bench, getting garbage time minutes in games that don’t matter. Maybe one day someone will use his offensive prowess and give him a chance to be one of the league’s best at the expense of defense. Until then, Boban sits, an offensive weapon yet to be harnessed.