HANDS: The length of the average adult male hand, measured from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinkie, is 7.4 inches. The result? The aerobatic ability to dribble the length of the floor, elevate for a rebound, fly laterally through the air for an alley-oop-all complex movements that originate from the core. Other long players will have stability in the sagittal plane (which divides the trunk down the middle) but not in their frontal or horizontal planes. All that lean muscle mass allows him to generate force quickly, which gives him the agility and explosiveness that the NBA game demands.ĬORE: Typically, in players of Antetokounmpo's length and power, sports scientists see core instability, but this is yet another area in which the big Greek resembles more compact players. "To be big is one thing, but to have muscles that are tuned to their optimal characteristics is another," says Troy Flanagan, Ph.D., the Bucks' director of performance. But, crucially, he's managed to do it without bulking up. LEAN MUSCLE: Over the past 18 months, Antetokounmpo has put on an impressive amount of muscle-his weight went from 196 pounds on draft day to 222 this season. If he remains at the small forward position, he'll do so as the tallest wing in the league. The 6-11 Giannis is every bit as stable and agile as the shorter version. Even more remarkable is that the basketball gods gifted Antetokounmpo those extra 2½ inches of height without exacting any payment. "He told me, 'The kid is still growing and I don't think he's done.'" By season's end, he was 6-11. But at midseason, the Bucks' strength and conditioning coach walked into Hammond's office. HEIGHT: "When we first drafted Giannis, we measured him at 6-foot-8½," Bucks GM John Hammond says. He displays great hip extension and high abduction and adduction velocities, which means he's able to handle lateral motion (say, sliding side to side while defending a ball handler) faster than other athletes his size. But Antetokounmpo isn't a typical big man. "That means high force, very stable and flexible." That can be challenging for an NBA big man, who can rarely get his hips low enough to create the lateral force to move like a wing player. LATERAL MOVEMENT: "To be a great lateral mover in the NBA, you've got to have great hips," Elliott says. The leader? Quincy Acy, whose wingspan is 9 inches longer than his height. Antetokounmpo ranks in the top 10 in rebound rate among small forwards. "If you have long arms, it allows you to get places faster, without having to move your feet or your center of mass," Elliott says. That's where wingspan factors in for Antetokounmpo, whose outstretched arms measure 7-foot-3, 4 inches more than his height. WINGSPAN: Basketball is a game of angles a defender isn't so much guarding his man as he is reducing the size of his angle to drive to the basket or pass to teammates. Welcome to our tour of the NBA's ideal body. To understand how Antetokounmpo's form gives way to function, we recently spent a day measuring the 6-foot-11 forward, then asked Marcus Elliott, M.D., the founder of P3 Applied Sports Science, a training center that specializes in advanced athlete assessment, to help break him down. Their instincts were quickly proved right: Thanks to his unique biomechanical and physiological qualities, he is one of just three players in the past decade to average 15 points, 7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1 block per game in his age-21 season. The Bucks drafted Antetokounmpo 15th overall that year, feeling he combined big-man length with the agility of an elite guard. There was only one consensus: His body was among the best scouts had ever seen. He had played mostly in Greece's youth system and second-tier pro league, so no one could agree on how he'd best be used in the NBA. He didn't attend the combine or team workouts, so he had never been extensively measured. Subscribe today!Įarly in the 2012-13 season, 18-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo landed on the radar of NBA scouts, shrouded in mystery. Note: This story appeared in ESPN The Magazine's Feb. The extraordinary measures of Giannis Antetokounmpo You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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