Tyson Chandler piece about best bigs in NBA (very well done)

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Anthony Davis
There is simply no game plan for this guy. His skill set is so pure and smooth. What I love about him is that you could drop him on any court and he’s going to get you 20 points and 12 rebounds just off of playing the game. They don’t even have to run plays for him. That’s not to say that they don’t go through him a lot in New Orleans, but it’s within a system. It’s not about set isolation plays. There’s certain bigs where you can sense, “OK, here comes his go-to play.” For example, if I’m guarding Tim Duncan and I hear “wedge roll,” I know that he’s going to get a screen, and go to his favorite block and get to his move (more on that later).

With Anthony Davis, he’s not necessarily going to be in the high post where Chris Bosh used to operate, or on the left block where so many conventional bigs like to operate. Davis is all over the floor. The thing that makes him so special is that he has a sense of timing that is completely unique for a big man. He’s a guy who hit his growth spurt really late, so he has the timing of a guard. He’ll start out on the wing and then make a cut into open space that a guard would make. Watch his movement before this dunk against the Thunder.

As a shot blocker, he’s unlike anyone I’ve seen in the NBA in a long time. I think about shot blocking in all different ways. Serge Ibaka is a great weak-side shot blocker. Myself, I’m more of a rim protector. I’m trying to make you miss. I’m very calculated about how many shots I’ll actually try to block. I’m going to use the rule of verticality to the best of my ability. Verticality is kind of a fuzzy rule, but basically if a big jumps with his arms extended straight up, he’s entitled to his ground. So I tend to jump straight up instead of going for the ball, because I know that will alter their shot. Roy Hibbert is another verticality guy.

Anthony Davis is not a verticality guy. He’s a timing guy. He has a long wingspan and he’s developed great timing on when to go for the ball. The only other person that I’ve seen that was similar was Marcus Camby. Those guys time the shot before it gets to its peak, and they swing from low and bat it out of the air. I saw him doing it at the Olympics for the first time and I was like, “Huh. That’s interesting. That’s an effective way to block a shot.” I feel like maybe he picked it up from watching Marcus as a kid.

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