The former Baylor star, now with the Mercury of the WNBA, Brittney Griner is an amazing freak of nature on the court. Her hands are bigger than Lebron James', and his wingspan is wider than Andrew Bynum's. But what I find incredible is her ability to cover a shooter way in front of her, and to leap and get a finger on a shot 11 feet in the air.
Nuggets' JaVale McGee shows ungodly skills in dunking two basketballs, while in flight. So while he focuses on rebounding a second basketball, and dunking it, he sizes up what he has to do to dunk the first basketball. By the time he dunks that first basketball, however, he no longer has direct vision of the hoop. So he's dunking blind.
Bulls' Carlos Boozer has one of the rainbow shots I've seen. They seem to arc much higher than others' shots. Nuggets' Stephen Curry has a rainbow of a shot as well. Besides the fact that this allows him to shoot over defenders much taller than his 6-feet, 3-inches, the arc of the ball means that it has more of the hoop's surface area to target. In practical terms, his shooting style widens the hoop and minimizes misses. Moreover, his ball release is the quickest that Sports Science has analyzed.
Blake Griffin wows players, sportscasters and fans alike every night, it seems. I see that what defines filthy posterization is not just the body contact with the defender, but also leveraging that defender to elevate higher and get longer hang time for the big throw down.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
Ron Villejo, PhD
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