The latest blip in the wilderness of NBA free agency came Wednesday, when former Sixers center Boban Marjanovic signed a two year, $7 million deal with the Dallas Mavericks, according to The Athletic's Shams Charania.
The deal is itself is relatively minor, both in Sixers land and at large. No one was under the illusion that Marjanovic would return, and the nearly-31-year-old backup center doesn't really dominate games.
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The signing is very important, however, to those who follow the NBA's friendships. Marjanovic and recently-signed Sixers star Tobias Harris are quite possibly the league's best pair of best friends. They danced together. They hung out together. They made cheesesteaks together. And their respective NBA careers saw them play alongside each other, improbably, on three different teams over the last three years.
It was kind of insane! The odds of two wildly different players following each other through three different stops are very long. As two of the seemingly nicest dudes in the league, their friendship is refreshing, and it was fun to have it stop in Philadelphia for a few months.
But the Tobi and Bobi on-court partnership has finally reached the end of its rope. Understandably, people are emotional.
Harris, for his part, tweeted through his feelings:
Marjanovic offered some comedic relief, as he does:
And plenty of Sixers fans and basketball fans online, including PhillyVoice's biggest Marjanovic fan Brian Hickey, are also taking the separation pretty hard:
We'll miss you, Bobi, and we'll miss the magic of Tobi and Bobi, even as the relationship presumably lives on. It was a wild ride.
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