The final day of the 2023-24 regular season was an event-filled afternoon, with a number of playoff teams jockeying for seeding, others trying to improve draft lottery odds and a few just hoping to end the campaign on a high note.
The Houston Rockets, who had made a late charge for the Play-In Tournament with a 13-2 record in March but faltered in early April, fell into the latter category, looking for their first non-losing record since the 2019-20 season.
As it turned out Sunday, the Rockets — and Los Angeles Clippers fans — both took home a win. With 4:44 remaining in the fourth quarter of Houston’s eventual 116-105 victory over the Clippers, center Boban Marjanović missed his first free throw. Marjanović — a career 76.4 percent free-throw shooter — then purposefully missed the second to win LA fans free chicken.
The Clippers organization runs a promo in which attending fans get free chicken if the opposition misses two free throws in a row. So the Clippers faithful, who had seen its backups fight admirably all evening, finally had something to cheer about, prompting the rising crescendo.
Boban.
Man of the people. 🍗 pic.twitter.com/PRq6xIXxIW
— NBA (@NBA) April 15, 2024
Rewarding home fans when two consecutive fourth-quarter free throws are missed has grown in popularity in recent years. In the midst of blowouts when the end-of-bench players finally take the floor, few things are more satisfying than seeing a reserve miss the first free throw, getting the crowd riled up, only to make the second and mock them.
But if there was anyone in the NBA who would purposely miss to ensure that traveling fans would go home with a reward, it would be Marjanović, arguably the nicest professional basketball player on the planet.
The sparingly-used Marjanović played the entire fourth, the biggest indicator that Houston’s season was over, but the former Clipper, who was named a finalist for the NBA’s sportsmanship award, has made a career of kindhearted gestures at his various stops around the league. As soon as the second free throw rolled off the side of the rim, Boban raised one finger in the air, reminding the ongoers who to thank for the free Chick-Fil-A.
(Photo: Adam Pantozzi / Getty Images)
