Basketball Player-Turned-'John Wick' Star Leaving NBA
Serbian basketball player Boban Marjanović has enjoyed a successful career in the NBA over the past decade, becoming a fan favorite for many and even crossing over onto the big screen with movie roles. But nine years after his first NBA season, Marjanović is headed back to Europe.
On Sept. 18, sources confirmed to ESPN that Marjanović is leaving the NBA for the EuroLeague—a homecoming of sorts to the league where he got his start at the turn of the 2010s. He'll be joining Turkish team Fenerbahçe Beko.
"We want Boban to be Boban, that’s all. We’re waiting for him," Fenerbahçe Beko Sarunas Jasikevicius said of his signing, per Eurohoops.
Boban Marjanovic Fenerbahçe Beko’da! ✍️????????
— Fenerbahçe Beko (@FBBasketbol) September 18, 2024
???? https://t.co/PYb3QK0Ijx pic.twitter.com/OsFXiUwbua
Marjanović has played for a number of teams both in the EuroLeague and in the NBA throughout his career. In the EuroLeague, he played for Eastern European teams like CSKA Moscow, Žalgiris, Nizhny Novgorod, Radnički Kragujevac, Mega Vizura, and Crvena zvezda. He joined the NBA in 2015, playing for the San Antonio Spurs and later for the Detroit Pistons, Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, and Dallas Mavericks. His most recent stint was two years with the Houston Rockets.
In 2019, Marjanović made the jump from the basketball court to the big screen. He had a cameo role as an assassin named Ernest in the action thriller John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. In his scene, he fights John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves, in the New York Public Library. Marjanović went on to have a role in basketball film Hustle in 2022; the following year, he took on an assassin role again in the 2023 film Self Reliance.
Whenever Marjanović retires from basketball altogether, he might have a promising career in Hollywood waiting for him.