A love letter to Josh Giddey
Some like blondes, some like brunettes. My type is huge guards who can make every pass.
I need to be honest, I have a type.
Some like blondes, some like brunettes. My type is huge guards who can make every pass. I don't know why I love them, but I do. Giddey is very far away from being a star in the NBA, but my eyes are drawn to him every time I’ve checked in on the Thunder. He looks like Timothée Chalamet, but plays with the awkwardness of Michael Cera.
It was an absolute shock to see him drafted sixth overall. Coming from Australia and playing in the NBL gave Giddey many of the same question marks that LaMelo had. Is he fast enough? Can he score at all? Is he too thin? And most importantly — is this guy an NBA player?
Do you remember at the very end of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift when Dominic Toretto shows up in Japan to race Sean? At the end of their pre-race conversation, Sean tells Dom that this ain’t no ten second race, and Dom smiles at him and says, “I got nothing but time.”
The Thunder are the best possible situation for a player with that much pre-draft uncertainty. OKC has nothing but time to develop 19-year-old, legit 6’8 Josh Giddey into a supersized initiator. There is absolutely zero pressure for him to contribute to winning. So go ahead, Josh, do your thing:
I believe the archetype Josh Giddey is quickly falling into is amongst the most rare and valuable in the NBA. There are less than six guys in the world who hold the size, touch, and combination of passing vision and adventurousness that Giddey possesses: LeBron, Luka, LaMelo, Ben Simmons, and Nikola Jokic. Those are five guys who wield their god-given size and natural offensive creativity into looks that nobody else in the league can generate for their team.
No, it’s not likely that Giddey joins the super secret club of ginormous world-beating offensive initiators anytime soon. But I’m a firm believer that the first step to NBA stardom is being among the league’s best at one particular skill — and you’ll see pretty quickly that Giddey is entering the league as one of the premier passers in the world. The only downside to being an actual wizard on the basketball court is that racking up assists takes two to tango, and the Thunder don’t have many guys who can finish passes like this:
I understand watching a Thunder game on purpose is a tough task. They have extremely ugly uniforms, colors, and logos. Your favorite team is going to whoop up on them for the next several years. And while I’m not the biggest fan of their draft pick accumulation strategy, they’ve got some interesting young talents. Aleksej Pokusevski is another installment in the NBA’s long line of freakazoids. Theo Maledon does things. And they just gave Shai Gilgeous-Alexander the rookie max extension, but he already feels out of place.
I also understand that a player like Giddey is my cup of tea, and might not be yours. I find myself prioritizing playmaking over scoring when it comes to NBA prospects. Giddey’s ability to manipulate defenses with his eyes is reminiscent of Patrick Mahomes, and he throws bullets into traffic like Justin Herbert. I believe that every great passer can add enough scoring to make defenses pay — Lonzo Ball is a perfect example of this. But not every great scorer can create for others.
Giddey makes passes that nearly every other player in the league cannot. That’s enough to grab my attention, and I bet he’ll grab yours. Basketball is a blank canvas. The players are the artists who use their gifts to create something special, to make us feel something.
Those awkward Giddey buckets bring me joy. Watching him whip unthinkable passes around the ears of hopeless defenders brings me joy. And if those assists are to Poku, that’s when I really start to feel giddy.