SIAKAM TAKING A SPIN AS GO-TO OFFENSIVE FORCE
Pascal Siakam is doing amazing things every night on a basketball court and it’s setting him apart from most of his peers.
The Raptors’ starting forward has one unique move down pat. At or near full speed, he advances on a back-pedalling defender and just as he gets to him plants and spins his back toward the defender, who is now at a loss to determine what will happen next.
Normally, Siakam just completes the spin and if the defender has somehow managed to stay in front of him, he uses his reach and length to manoeuvre the ball around the defender and softly off glass for two points. It all happens in the fraction of a second. And it’s not only fans who marvel at the move.
“I can’t do it,” Kyle Lowry said when asked about Siakam’s signature spin. “It’s his move. You practise a move, you know your move. If you’re comfortable with your move and you know your move, you’ll make it.
“I know P (short for Siakam’s nickname PSkills) got the skills and he put the work in. You put the work in and the results look good.”
Yes, the results have looked very good.
Siakam is making that shot on a regular basis. Head coach Nick Nurse figures Siakam is good on the move eight out of the 10 times he tries it.
Fred VanVleet has had a frontrow seat for the refinement of this move over the last two summers, spending large chunks of the last two off-seasons on a court with a group that includes Siakam, Delon Wright and Norm Powell. He just shakes his head at the consistency Siakam enjoys with a move that is far more haphazard and unpredictable. “Hell, yeah, we are all fans of Pascal,” VanVleet said. “We love watching him play. It’s fun. Sometimes it just looks like he’s out there playing summer ball. Teams don’t guard him because they don’t respect his shooting, but that hurts them even more because he’s getting a full head of steam and those big guys can’t keep up with him. “There’s not many guys that have that combination of size and speed and ball-handling and footwork. It’s tough for a guy of his size to do it.”
For Siakam, this spin move is something he has always done. “I always spin, I’ve always liked to spin.” Siakam said.
“Just working on changing directions and now being able to handle the ball more and seeing the angles and what the defence gives me with my speed and changing directions, those are the things I continue to work on.”
In college, he was a back-tothe-basket player who would spin out of that and be attacking the rim before a defender could adjust. Over time in the professional ranks he has refined first his handle and then the move and necessary footwork to make it all come together.
Even if a defender stands in and tries to make a strategy change on Siakam, he has that unique ability to contort himself while in the air to avoid contact and the wingspan to get the ball around the defender and lay it in. Siakam said the talent around him helps make his move the success it is.
“I think the guys, Fred ( VanV-leet) and KLow (Lowry), they do a good job,” Siakam said. “Whenever they think I have a matchup that I can go at and especially with my speed, they just give me the freedom to go. It’s great to have guys like that who recognize that and give me that freedom to go out and do my thing.”
The shooters on the floor with him also create more space for Siakam to operate. Monday night in a win over Salt Lake City, it was the decision to just get Siakam the ball and clear a side of the floor for him, ensuring a one-on-one battle that helped the Raptors flip the momentum. Through the first quarter, even with the score close, the Jazz seemed to have things going their way. Siakam helped changed that. “We like to give him some freedom to explore just how good he can be with all of the skills he has,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “It would be really easy to say, ‘Ah, he’s a non-shooter and he can’t play in this modern game,’ but he has some speed and these ball skills and a really unbelievable spin move ... So it’s good. He’s getting better and better at it.”
It has been so good and so effective that smart guys like VanVleet are looking around the room and wondering who else might have the skill set to do what Siakam is doing.
“I was actually talking to OG (Anunoby) about picking up some of that stuff,” VanVleet said. “I think he has a good chance to be a playmaker in the open court like that, but it takes time.”
Who knows? It may not be long now before the Raptors are clearing out a side for Anunoby and letting him go to work, too.