Kristaps Porzingis Went on ESPN Sport Science and Proved He Might Be the NBA’s Greatest Athlete
You already know that Kristaps Porzingis is an outlier.
The 7-foot-3, 240-pound New York Knicks power forward looks just as comfortable draining 3s as he does slamming down put-back dunks. That’s not normal.
But a recent visit to the ESPN Sport Science lab proved that Porzingis might be an even bigger athletic freak than we already gave him credit for:
There’s something extremely satisfying about watching John Brenkus get swatted over and over again.
Anyway, the workout starts with an agility test that requires Porzingis to dribble a ball while weaving around several poles. Porzingis averages 2.37 seconds. Is that good? Well, here’s some context: Boston Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas averaged 2.33 seconds in the drill. Porzingis is 18 inches taller than Thomas and outweighs him by 55 pounds. So yeah, that’s good.
Porzingis’s max touch (the highest point he can touch with a running start) was 12 feet, 2.5 inches. Considering that the rim is 10 feet off the floor, that’s an astonishing number. Porzingis’s max vertical (how many inches he gets off the ground with a running start) was 37.5 inches—two inches higher than Blake Griffin’s.
So . . . the dude can get up higher than Blake Griffin and move nearly as fast as Isaiah Thomas. Oh, and he has range. In his rookie season, Porzingis averaged 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. And he’s still only 21 years old. When you look at his raw athleticism and consider the fact he’s already proven he can produce in the NBA, Porzingis’s potential seems truly limitless.
RELATED: Kristaps Porzingis Dunks on the Kid Who Booed Him on Draft Night
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Kristaps Porzingis Went on ESPN Sport Science and Proved He Might Be the NBA’s Greatest Athlete
You already know that Kristaps Porzingis is an outlier.
The 7-foot-3, 240-pound New York Knicks power forward looks just as comfortable draining 3s as he does slamming down put-back dunks. That’s not normal.
But a recent visit to the ESPN Sport Science lab proved that Porzingis might be an even bigger athletic freak than we already gave him credit for:
There’s something extremely satisfying about watching John Brenkus get swatted over and over again.
Anyway, the workout starts with an agility test that requires Porzingis to dribble a ball while weaving around several poles. Porzingis averages 2.37 seconds. Is that good? Well, here’s some context: Boston Celtics guard Isaiah Thomas averaged 2.33 seconds in the drill. Porzingis is 18 inches taller than Thomas and outweighs him by 55 pounds. So yeah, that’s good.
Porzingis’s max touch (the highest point he can touch with a running start) was 12 feet, 2.5 inches. Considering that the rim is 10 feet off the floor, that’s an astonishing number. Porzingis’s max vertical (how many inches he gets off the ground with a running start) was 37.5 inches—two inches higher than Blake Griffin’s.
So . . . the dude can get up higher than Blake Griffin and move nearly as fast as Isaiah Thomas. Oh, and he has range. In his rookie season, Porzingis averaged 14.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game. And he’s still only 21 years old. When you look at his raw athleticism and consider the fact he’s already proven he can produce in the NBA, Porzingis’s potential seems truly limitless.
RELATED: Kristaps Porzingis Dunks on the Kid Who Booed Him on Draft Night