UPPER MARLBORO, Md. — As part of a Washington Wizards fan day at a Six Flags amusement park, Marcin Gortat had spent nearly an hour signing autographs and taking photos with fans who paid the $20 in parking fees and ducked the rows of roller coasters, overpriced candy stores and the hyped-up children that come with amusement parks for his signature.

With his time up, he peeled his 6-foot-11 frame away from the signing table and began to head back from the team bus. A wave of adoring fans followed, asking for one more picture. “Do it quickly,” he said, half-stopping to pose as he towered over the crowd.

They kept following, as a Wizards public relations staff member tried to quickly usher him onto the waiting bus. For the center, it was nothing.

“Trust me here it’s OK, back in Poland what we step in is ridiculous,” he said. “Over there is noooo limits.”

After a season in which he proved himself to be an important piece of the Wizards run to the playoffs, Gortat, the only Polish player in the league, solidified his status as one of the league’s most interesting and quirky players when he posted pictures of himself in Poland riding a tank through the streets and in another post with a pig that he claimed was his pet. He later admitted it wasn’t and was in fact just a pig he took a picture with at a shopping center. “I hope she’s safe,” he said, in between bites of pizza topped with sausage. “Probably eaten. I truly don’t know what’s going on with her.”

But long before that, in his homeland of Poland, he’s been a combination of a beloved celebrity, beacon of hope and one-man ambassador of the game determined to boost the level of play. He’s also, as he showed when sending Polish food to the NBA on TNT crew after Shaquille O’Neal declared that pierogies were sausages, determined to bring a bit of his homeland to the United States.

“It goes both ways,” he said. “The good part about being an international guy on the team is people can learn where’s Poland and things from my culture and obviously I’m learning everyday about American culture. Obviously there’s a few guys on the team that have no clue where’s Poland. People were saying Africa …”

Wait, who was saying it was in Africa?

“What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room,” he grinned.

Though he’s found some food he likes in the United States — he’s a big fan of Five Guys, P.F Chang’s, Ruth Chris Steakhouse and more — he still misses the food in Poland, and employs a Polish chef.

http://instagram.com/p/sXFie2D5Xk/?modal=true

“The two things I’m quite sure we have big advantage over the United States: women, we have the most beautiful women … I mean beautiful and smart and good culture, most of them come from good houses,” he said, of Poland. “And the second thing is food. We have a lot of farmers.

“We have a lot of healthy food, I think the numbers show in the United States that 50% of the people in the U.S. are overweight, so back in Poland that’s impossible — I don’t think we have 25% even.”

Gortat’s foray into basketball began when he was a teenager and decided that instead of playing soccer he wanted to try basketball. He was almost instantly good at it, as his size helped even before he developed his skills. What he’s great at now is dominating the paint — last season, he put up 13.5 points, 9.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks a game.

He was drafted in 2005 but spent two more years in Europe before joining the Orlando Magic in 2007. He went to the Phoenix Suns in 2010, where he doubled his playing time before being acquired by the Wizards in what many deemed a risky trade in 2013. After being a major part of the Wizards’ push to the playoffs last season, the franchise seemed determined to keep him, sending Wizards coach Randy Wittman and the general manager to Poland in the off-season to negotiate.

“I spoke with a lot of players and they told me, ‘You can’t deny the love, if they love you so much you have to go with the team,’” Gortat said. “One thing I was just afraid of they were going to try to use this as a joker in the sleeve (and say), ‘Well, we went to Poland, now you got to sign with us.’ … But it never turned that way. It never did.”

While in Poland he took Wittman and Ernie Grunfeld to some of his favorite spots though declined to say exactly what they did. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he said. Their funniest moment together, he said, was when he introduced Wittman to a crowd of 15,000 people that he had spoken to before his celebrity basketball game against the Polish army.

“He stood up and everyone started clapping and cheering for him and then I threw him under the bus because a few hundred people started coming at him for signatures and pictures and I said ‘now you’ve got to work.'”

After signing a new five-year, $60 million deal, Gortat is returning to a Wizards team that now includes Paul Pierce and Kris Humphries and expectations to make the playoffs again this year. “We brought a lot of different personalities, obviously last year we had a lot of people frustrated that they didn’t play, you know frustrated from not getting the right minutes, not getting the right shots and you know now we have a lot of guys who are getting a fresh start, who are going to be able to get some minutes and fight for their minutes and start something new,” he said.

Later at Six Flags, in what almost seemed like an accidental encore show for his fans, as his teammates began to fill the team bus to get ready to go back to Washington, Gortat needed to get somewhere quickly and approached a police car sitting nearby. “Can I get a ride?” he asked the surprised police officers, who expressed concern if he could fit into their car.

Martell Webster came over and the two started to joke about making a citizen’s arrest, as a crowd of fans began to grow, delighted at the encore of the Gortat Show.

Finally, after more discussions with the police, he slid into the front passenger seat and the car drove away.