When Talking Shit Goes Wrong: A Bosnian Player Decided To Stop Playing So He Could Talk Shit To Domantas Sabonis Only To Then Immediately Get Put On A Poster
Talk about life coming at you fast. One second you just capped off a pretty legit play at the rim by blocking Domantas Sabonis which was rather impressive. Naturally, your emotion takes over and you scream in his face. Maybe you think that's a little over the top but you're saying that as someone who has never blocked Sabonis at the rim as he tried to put you on a poster. I will fully support a player talking shit in that scenario. When you make a great play, it's OK to react.
At the same time, you need to make sure the play is dead. I'm not sure what that guy was thinking in that moment, but he clearly had no idea where the ball went after he made the play at the rim. That was unfortunate because while he was too busy celebrating it meant he was then late on a rotation and the next thing you know, it's your ass that's on a poster. That's one hell of a wave of emotion. Some might even say it's some good old fashioned basketball karma coming back to bite that dude in the ass.
What we see here is a player making the tragic mistake of not finishing his play. Now nobody cares that you made an impressive play on Sabonis because you blew your load too early by celebrating. Let this be a lesson to all the young kids out there that might be reading this blog. You can talk all the shit you want, but you better make sure the play is completely finished before you do it.
I'm also not ruling out that Sabonis played a role in this by sort of baiting that guy into continuing his celebration so that he would be late rotating. That's what I call being a great teammate. Sure maybe you got blocked (or fouled?) at the rim, but instead of dropping your head and being embarrassed you still find a way to impact the two points. Look at how Sabonis celebrated after the poster.
It's almost like he knew what he did. Now that guy has both Lithuania players screaming in his ear which had to be very embarrassing for him in the moment.
Speaking of Sabonis for a second, I'm really intrigued to see what he and the Kings look like this year. I feel like every offseason people talk about the Kings finally taking any sort of step forward and potentially ending their playoff drought, only for none of that to happen once the season starts. But now that they have Sabonis for a full season as well as some internal development of their younger players, perhaps this is the season it finally happens.