Because the 2025 NBA Playoffs are get underway, we’re all wanting ahead to seeing gamers like Luka Dončić, James Harden and Nikola Jokic rise to the event and placed on performances to recollect. All of them are key gamers for Western Convention contenders, who may doubtlessly outline this yr’s playoffs with large performances over the subsequent few weeks. And all of them are superstars in their very own proper in a league of elite athletes, regardless of not being thought-about very athletic by conventional requirements.
Over the previous couple of years, nonetheless, analysis has proven that each one of those gamers possesses athletic abilities that set them aside, however are more durable to catch in case you’re not conscious of them, and in addition more durable to quantify.
Slowly however certainly, the phrase athleticism is taking up a brand new which means. The prior, mostly understood definition of athletic — how briskly a participant can run and the way excessive they will soar — is now deemed too slim, as a result of we’ve realized that athleticism contains rather more nuance and complexity than simply the vertical leap and pace.
Timing, change of course, acceleration, deceleration, coordination, response time and pressure placed on the bottom are simply a few of the factors that biomechanists and efficiency coaches at locations just like the Peak Efficiency Challenge (P3) attempt to measure and map. They’ve assessed about two-thirds of NBA gamers and have collected knowledge on NBA gamers for over ten years.
P3 checked out Luka Dončić frequently from the age of 16, when he was simply breaking out on Actual Madrid, till the beginning of his NBA profession at 19. And so they have been on the forefront of attempting to measure what bodily qualities have made him so profitable within the NBA.
What they discovered was that even when he wasn’t an distinctive leaper or sprinter, he had a number of abilities that clearly indicated that he would make a great NBA participant even earlier than he entered the league: above common power, lateral acceleration and nice positional dimension. However, what actually stood out to them, nonetheless, was the identical factor that they observed in James Harden years earlier than — Dončić’s “superhuman” braking skill.
Eric Leidersdorf, director of biomechanics at P3, known as this high quality “the flip facet of acceleration”, which is a capability simply as efficient in basketball. In an interview with Ben Taylor on the Basketball Intelligence podcast a few years in the past, he talked in regards to the era of pressure, saying that “that is when (James) Harden and Luka (Dončić) actually begin to separate themselves from the pack. Each do an unimaginable job of producing pressure when they’re slowing down.”
Each had athletic presents that bubbled beneath the floor, P3 discovered. This braking skill — or sluggish step, as Luka Dončić has known as it — may be very abrupt and serves to assist create house.
Each Harden and Dončić are, after all, a few of the finest on the planet on the step-back. This transfer, which the 2 have perfected, shouldn’t be about exploding previous a man in your first step, as a lot as it’s about braking. The brake permits them to ship a defender sprawling within the different course, creating a great quantity of house to get a shot up earlier than they recuperate.
Within the clip under, Luka Dončić reveals off his braking abilities as he will get Kevin Durant on skates in an isolation step-back transfer ending with an uncontested three-pointer. You clearly see the way it’s the braking quite than the explosion that creates the house for Dončić right here:
The identical will be stated about James Harden’s signature step-back:
“Whereas James (Harden) ranks within the 99th percentile in a sequence of deceleration-related metrics in comparison with our NBA database, Luka (Dončić) as an adolescent ranked within the 93rd percentile. In the identical approach that James’ athletic presents bubbled beneath the floor, Luka’s did too,” P3 discovered.
The possibility to review James Harden’s distinctive braking skill, a talent which frequently escapes the attention check, helped them perceive Luka Dončić’s distinctive set of abilities even earlier than he was drafted. Each gamers are nonetheless breaking down boundaries on what athleticism is, and the way we must always give it some thought and attempt to measure it.
Leidersdorf famous that Luka’s braking abilities already stood out as an adolescent, however wasn’t the place it’s as we speak.
“Luka’s skill to generate pressure throughout this part was one thing that he confirmed a number of promise in early on, at a younger age, however that he has additionally developed.”
The stopping and going, abrupt braking and decelerating backwards and forwards strikes that Dončić is a specific grasp of and might string collectively to create house, give him a novel benefit. It has clearly proven to be a sort of athleticism that transfers very properly to the courtroom.
This play from a few years in the past showcases that stop-and-go string of strikes that Dončić can put collectively, virtually like a rhythmic dance with the defender in isolation:
And it’s unattainable to speak about NBA gamers who’ve been thought-about unathletic, however who however handle to play world-class basketball each evening, with out mentioning Harden’s first-round opponent, Nuggets star Nikola Jokic. The three-time MVP award winner has been deemed doughy and sluggish his complete profession, however after testing at P3 they discovered him in reality very athletic — simply not in a approach we’re used to seeing.
In accordance with Leidersdorf, one factor that stood out about Jokic was “his skill to get off the bottom shortly”. Together with what Leidersdorf known as his “basketball savant skills”, his abilities proceed to set him aside and make him extraordinarily profitable within the NBA.
The success of those gamers over an prolonged time frame (Dončić was drafted in 2018, Jokic in 2014 and Harden in 2009), regardless of being thought-about comparatively unathletic, brings up the query whether or not we have to rethink how we talk about draft prospects sooner or later.
Are we biased once we see gamers soar excessive, too fast to conclude that this may equate to NBA success and thereby doubtlessly lacking the extra advanced athleticism of a future Harden, Luka or Jokic?
Ought to groups consider gamers in a different way — possibly by together with a greater diversity of athletic checks within the mix, maybe checks just like that of P3, which caught the distinctive athleticism of Harden and Dončić early on?
Lacking out on main abilities like Jokic, who was famously drafted throughout a Taco Bell industrial because the forty first decide within the second spherical of the 2014 draft, and who’s for the time being broadly considered one of the best participant on the planet, strongly means that we have to redefine what athleticism means, and take a more in-depth take a look at what different abilities have the potential to switch into success on the NBA courtroom.
As we’re about to see the subsequent era of NBA draft prospects evaluated in months to return, we have to ask ourselves whether or not the present measurements in place will inform us a lot, or whether or not Dončić, Harden and Jokic are simply the most recent to indicate us that we’re taking a look at athleticism in a too slim and biased approach, which may stop us from understanding what it really takes to achieve success in one of the best basketball league on the planet.
When gamers like Harden, Dončić and Jokic, who’re on monitor to as soon as once more outline the NBA playoffs, are typically thought-about unathletic, it’s simply one other reminder of all the things we’re nonetheless lacking once we take a look at athleticism the normal approach.