Siakam is Toronto’s new Spin Master
Pascal Siakam is averaging 29.9 minutes this season as a starter for the Raptors. Power forward’s favourite move, a popular ploy on the pitch, is catching fire with the media
Pascal Siakam may have patented his spin move on a basketball court, but the near-unstoppable play has its roots on a soccer field.
Soccer was Siakam’s first love. In his native Cameroon, it was the sport that more kids dreamed of playing professionally. But his three older brothers and father — who was ahead of the curve when it came to dreaming of his boys making the NBA — were basketball players and fans and eventually the future Raptor was hooked.
But Siakam didn’t leave everything behind when he made the switch. The spin move that has become so integral to his game resembles a soccer ploy some- times called the Maradona: a two-footed, 360-degree, forward-moving twirl that used to propel Argentine great Diego Maradona past defenders with ease.
“That’s the soccer background,” Siakam said recently on teammate Danny Green’s podcast, Inside the Green Room, while chatting about the success of the spin.
After an uncharacteristically quiet sixpoint night in Wednesday’s 113-102 win over the 76ers, he reiterated that the move goes way back.
“Always. I’ve always done that,” said Siakam, the power forward who has reached double digits in scoring 19 times in his last 21 games, “as long as I remember.” Even with a ball at his feet? “All that,” he said. It takes a lot of practice, but after all these years he has developed an instinct.
“I think my thing is, my first step is pretty quick, so it’s hard to recover from my first step and that’s why I can always spin, because I’m (going to) beat you with that first step. (The defender) is off balance and it’s hard to recover,” he said.
More playing time helps — Siakam is averaging 29.9 minutes this season as a starter, compared to 20.7 minutes last season with the second unit — and with it comes confidence. He’s shooting 77.5 per cent at the rim, 55.7 per cent from three to 10 feet, and is 8-for-8 from between 10 and 16 feet.
His two-point field-goal percentage of 69.6 tops the league-leading Raptors.
“I just take what the defence gives me,” he said, “and every time I feel like I have an advantage and I feel like I can get to (the spin move), I’m going to get to it.”
The eye-catching manoeuvre has brought more attention to Siakam and his game off the court — on highlight reels and when it comes to other media attention — but he told reporters in Cleveland last weekend that he hasn’t noticed teams treating him any differently during games.
“I don’t know, I can’t really tell,” he said. “I think that I get the shots that I always get … Maybe we’ll see. I’m going to start looking for that and see.”
An early candidate for most improved player in the NBA, Siakam said on the podcast that winning individual awards isn’t top of mind. Getting better every game, he says, is his personal goal going into every season.
“For me, there’s always things that you feel like you could have done better any game, right?” he said. “You have a career night or whatever, always feel like there’s things you could have done better and, for me, that’s just what I’m looking for, just trying to be better tonight and play my game.”
For now, though, the fun-lov- ing Siakam — nicknamed Spicy P — seems to be enjoying the fact that his favourite move is catching fire. He likened it to a “Jalapeno in a blender” when chatting with Green, and recently retweeted a post by a fan comparing it to a scene from TV’s The Office when Dwight Schrute, played by actor Rainn Wilson, used a spin move of his own to elude a receptionist and enter a meeting between a client and a rival salesperson.
“That’s funny,” Siakam commented in retweeting the video, with a number of laughing emojis.
Siakam hopes the move continues to work effectively, including Friday night against the Nets in Brooklyn, where he hopes to rebound from an off game against Philadelphia.
“You can predict it sometimes,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean you can stop it.”