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When Bill Walton dominated at UCLA in the 1970s Bryan Little Jersey , no one ever measured his wingspan – from fingertips to fingertips and arms outstretched.
Neither knew their wingspans then, and they still don’t. That is not the case for young players.
”Yeah, I found that out once I bought my first suit,” the 6-foot-5 McMillan, a 12-year pro now coaching the Pacers, said with a chuckle, realizing his arms stretched more than 3 feet each.
Once limited to descriptions of birds, wingspan has become one of the most important measurements for basketball prospects over the past decade. Coaches marvel at players with long arms, figuring they will more easily grab rebounds, block shots, steal passes and shoot over defenders.
The average man has a wingspan about 2 inches more than his height. But several NBA players pop off the chart because of their long arms.
It’s no coincidence that Jazz center Rudy Gobert, who stands 7-1 and led the NBA in blocks last season, has the longest wingspan in the league at 7 feet, 9 inches.
The NBA playoffs begin Saturday, and an extra inch of reach can lead to a blocked shot or steal that might alter a series or a season.
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo is nicknamed the ”Greek Freak” in part because he stands 6-11 with a 7-3 wingspan and giant hands. The explosive Russell Westbrook is 6-3, with a wingspan of 6-8, which helps him be one of the best rebounding guards in history.
”Every asset that a player has might make up for something else. If somebody’s short, hopefully they’re quick. The wingspan sure helps a lot of people Juuse Saros Jersey ,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said . ”You look at size of hands, wingspans. Look at John Stockton’s arms or Avery Johnson’s arms and they’re very long, and their hands are very big. They can control the basketball, they can do things with it.
”A wingspan always helps people, whether it’s blocking shots or deflections on defense.”
In recent seasons, Warriors high-scoring All-Star Kevin Durant has become more determined to use his 7-5 wingspan to make more of an impact on defense.
Durant, the reigning NBA Finals MVP , is quick to point out that his length allows him to make up for other areas, including being far leaner than most NBA players.
”You make up a lot of ground. I’m not as fast laterally, I’m not as athletic, I’m not as quick as guys up and down but I think I make up for it with my length,” said Durant, a defensive player of the year candidate. ”There’s a lot of guys, Draymond (Green) is the same way, small, undersized power forward but can guard plenty of guys because of his length. His arms are long and he can block shots. We’ve seen him block guys at the rim and also get his hands on some basketballs off the dribble.”
Raised in France, Gobert kept growing from ages 15-19. He didn’t often hear the term wingspan, finally understanding how special his measurement is when he got to the NBA.
”I think it’s something that makes a big difference Zach Parise Jersey , especially defensively,” he said. ”You’re able to deflect the pass or block shots.”
Warriors 7-foot center JaVale McGee went through only a handful of pre-draft workouts for NBA teams, hardly a prized prospect after a career at Nevada. Yet each visit he made, among the first things measured was his wingspan, 7-6.
One of the benefits is his ability to corral and slam home lob passes that are high and might be off target. Before he got to the NBA, McGee wasn’t even aware of his wingspan.
”I’ve always been tall. I was born tall,” he said. ”It’s nothing that I heard about until I got to the league, or right before I got into the league, they’re like, `We’d like to measure your wingspan.’ They don’t really bring it up to us about that in college or high school.”
Walton is in the Hall of Fame, but he never had his arms measured end to end.
”At one time, they were long enough, and I can still put my own shoes and socks on,” he quipped. ”It’s not how big you are, it’s how big you play. Any time you think you’re too small to make a difference in the world you’ve never spent the night alone in bed with a mosquito. But when you have the great game of basketball with all the ultimate winners of the genetic lottery … it’s not how high you jump, it’s where you are and when you jump.”
Wingspan is one detail Warriors coach Steve Kerr takes seriously and might consider when deciding on lineups and rotations for the defending champions. He has been going with a center by committee based on matchups.
Some of the best players Kerr faced had incredible reach.
”It’s legit. It’s much more important than your height,” Kerr said. ”If your wingspan is more than your height, that’s kind of abnormal. Most of us have the same wingspan as our height. That’s kind of a rule of thumb. A lot of basketball players don’t http://www.officialhockeyjetsshop.com/authentic-adidas-jacob-trouba-jersey , though, they have wider wingspans. And they’re able to get their hands on balls or shots or loose balls. … I’m a big believer in that.”
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The Minnesota Wild returned home from Winnipeg and regrouped to roar back in their first-round playoff series.
The Jets were a late arrival for Game 3 in more ways than one.
Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise had power-play goals in the first period for the spark that was missing on the road, and the Wild scored four times in the second to beat the Jets 6-2 on Sunday night.
”We’re here to play,” goalie Devan Dubnyk said, ”and we’re fully capable of pushing hard.”
The Wild will try to tie the best-of-seven series 2-2 when they host Game 4 on Tuesday night.
”They have been physical so we’ve got to push back,” said Jordan Greenway, who scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds after Eric Staal sent a wrist shot past a struggling Connor Hellebuyck. Fighting pucks all night, Hellebuyck was pulled for Steve Mason at the second intermission.
Matt Dumba and Marcus Foligno bookended the furious middle frame with goals for the Wild, who won a postseason home game for only the second time in their last nine contests. Mikko Koivu and Nick Seeler each had two assists and Dubnyk made 29 saves, keeping the crowd loud all night.
Blake Wheeler and Tyler Myers scored for the Jets.
”We’re in a series here,” said Hellebuyck, who made 16 saves. ”We’re going to lose one once in a while. It’s how we respond to the next one.”
After overtaking the Wild with two third-period goals to win 3-2 in Game 1 and dominating the action in Game 2 on the way to a 4-1 victory, the Jets hit some minor turbulence. The blizzard that blanketed the Twin Cities forced their charter flight to land in Duluth on Saturday afternoon and return to Winnipeg for the night. The Jets skipped the customary morning skate and arrived Sunday about eight hours before faceoff.
Whether or not the Jets were actually affected by the weather hardly mattered, given the way the Wild greeted them after the lackluster performance in Game 2.
”I don’t know if it made us worse, but I can say for a fact that it certainly didn’t make us better,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said.
The only shot the Jets sent on target over the first 11-plus minutes was the one by Wheeler that went in, a wide-angle attempt on the power play and a softie if there ever was one in keeping with Dubnyk’s uncanny tendency to let fluke goals get by him while making many more high-degree-of-difficulty stops. Dubnyk also gave up a goal on the first shot in a couple of games late in the regular season.
”And then he shut the door. So I wasn’t worried,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”I thought Chris Kreider Jersey , `OK. This is going to work.”’
The Wild snapped right back. Koivu took the initial shot that set up both goals in the first period, with Granlund waiting for the rebound on the first one . Parise freed himself from a tie-up in traffic with Jacob Trouba to move in position for the redirect of the second one .
Myers brought the decibel level down with his slap shot that cut the lead to 3-2 , but the Wild killed consecutive penalties with only about a minute between power plays soon after that to retake momentum. Then came the goals by Greenway and Staal, and the rout was on.
”When when that second period started, we weren’t able to get faster,” Wheeler said. ”And that’s when the game changed. They stuck with it, and we just weren’t able to get to our speed we needed.”
The second period went from bad to worse for the Jets, when Myers was checked by Foligno and caught his skate at the bottom of the boards. He needed help off the ice and into the locker room and did not return. Maurice had no update on the defenseman’s condition, but without elaborating he suggested the injury could have been avoided.
”Didn’t love it,” Maurice said, referring to both the hit and the outcome.
There was a lot to like, at least, about the Wild’s performance. All four lines produced at least one goal, and the rookie defenseman Seeler had a breakout game in the back with four blocked shots and a breakaway shot that hit the post and barely stayed in front of the line.
”That’s playoff hockey. You need everybody,” Staal said. ”You don’t win unless you have four lines and all your defensive core going.”
NOTES
The Wild set a franchise postseason record for goals in a home game. Their high was a 7-2 victory at Vancouver in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals on May 5, 2003. … After clinching their first-round series with a win in Game 6 at Xcel Energy Center in 2015 over St. Louis, the Wild lost both home games in a sweep by Chicago. Then they went 1-5 on their own ice in the playoffs over the last two years in series losses to Dallas and St. Louis. … Jets center Mathieu Perreault missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury. Defenseman Toby Enstrom and center Matt Hendricks have yet to play in the series due to a lower-body injury. … Wheeler had the third postseason goal of his career in 28 games.
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