Julian AndrewsWeb Editorial AssociateTwitter
With Jimmy Butler sidelined, Nemanja Bjelica has been seeing more time on the court, but it wasn’t his increased role that has earned him headlines lately.
At the free-throw line in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game against the Jazz, Bjelica inexplicably dropped his shorts to his knees to tuck in his jersey. While the Serbian forward was wearing tights underneath, the move still elicited quite a reaction from the announcers and the crowd.
Twitter predictably blew up, and Bjelica confirmed that he had more messages than usual waiting on his phone after the game.
“My parents called me like ‘What are you doing?’ my wife was laughing, people from Serbia too,” he said with a laugh after Monday's practice.
While most of us might thing twice about pulling our pants down in front of 18,000 people, Bjelica didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“Maybe I pulled my shorts way down but I have my tights so… I tried to pull my shorts inside my jersey, and you know, here in the USA, they make jokes from anything.”
NBA players are famous for their pre-free-throw rituals; no word yet on whether the pants-drop will make it into Bjelica’s permanent routine. He did hit the shot though, so anything is possible.