RealGM

I know a lot has been said in this forum about different measurements and their importance to the game of basketball. I think that a lot of people, myself included, don't really understand what some of these measurements and numbers mean in relation to each other and to someone's game as a whole. For me, I was looking at the measurements of Jeff Green and Kevin Love, and Love has three inches of standing reach on Green, but Green has two inches of wingspan on Love. When I think of Love and Green, I don't think that Green has the more elongated chest. I was hoping that someone like a Slick Watts could help some of us basketball laymen up our knowledge of some of these measurables.

Don't listen to Slick. He holds more importance on Reach and wingspan than is realistic.

For anyone that is actually wondering what each is:

Standing reach - measurement from the floor to your fingertips when you put your arms straight up

Wingspan - measurement from fingertips of the right hand to fingertips of the left hand when both arms are completely extended to the side


As far as why Green's measurements are oddly different from Love's, I would say that Green has a pretty long neck/head and also has amazingly broad shoulders. The long neck and head would mean that if Green is 6'9" and 10 inches of it is in his neck/head and Love is 6'9" and 8 of it is neck/head, then Love's shoulder's would be 2 inches further up, so when he lifts his arms they start with a 2 inch advantage. You're right that Love is the wider player of the two, but Green has VERY broad shoulders.

Implications on basketball would be different for the two measurements:

Wingspan - helps players get their arms in passing lanes and reach for a rebound that is out of their way

standing reach - helps players challenge shots and provides a good measurement for how affective the player will be in situations where he's not able to get off of the ground. To a certain extent, it also helps predict how high someone can get to get a rebound/block a shot: standing reach = 9 ft and vertical = 24 inches means that (without running, just jumping straight up), the player could get 11 ft into the air.

For these measurements there are obviously many other factors to consider before they even start to be worthwhile, like "does the player put himself in a position to use his wingspan?" "sure, his vertical is great, but he's a really slow jumper, so there's almost no application to the actual game"

There are several other things that will tell you a lot more about a player, but these two things do give a good idea if you're looking at some specific comparisions

Clangus wrote:Don't listen to Slick. He holds more importance on Reach and wingspan than is realistic.

Hopefully you were joking

No reason to minimize anyone's opinion because you don't share the view...

reach and wingspan are both sort of imporant, but only really important when you're either freakishly long or you're giving up a lot. this is true for most physical measurements in the nba.. foot speed isn't really that important if you're comparing, say, nenad krstic and nick collison. they're both below average. but a guy ilke chris paul or, for example, who's ridiculously fast obviously that's a big advantage for him to exploit. conversely, take wally szczerbiak who's really slow for his position and it's a big hurdle for him to overcome.

reach and wingspan are the same. kevin durant has a 9'2" standing reach and a similarly freakish wingspan. if he's playing small forward he's longer than everyone. this is a similar advantage offensively that chris paul has with his foot speed. on the other end you have jeff green who has the shortest reach of any starting power forward. so he, like wally, has a big hurdle to overcome in many situations on the court. jeff's got other skills that help him such as his athleticsm but he'll always have this fundamental obstacle at power forward.

just imagine jeff green trying to guard kevin durant. durant's got seven inches of length on green. there's practically no chance of green altering durant's shot. reach is an advantage or disadvantage, doesn't mean a player is bad or no good but they can really make or break matchups.

as for the differences in reach and wingspan, jeff green has a wider body than kevin love so that's why the measurements are at odd.

As you allude to, none of these natural advantages mean a thing if the guy doesn't know how to capitalize on it.

Examples:
Players with long reach who get pump-faked into the air by smaller players because they're trying to swat a shot into the stands

Players with huge wingspans who don't ever bother to get their arms out into the passing lanes

wizkid27 wrote:

Clangus wrote:Don't listen to Slick. He holds more importance on Reach and wingspan than is realistic.

Hopefully you were joking

No reason to minimize anyone's opinion because you don't share the view...

Yeah it was a joke. But Slick didn't bite. LOL

In all seriousness, his opinions are very well thought out. I just dont always agree/.

Totally agree. I think that some of it is that Slick approaches it from a non-Thunder fan perspective as opposed to me homering it up

mnkinga23 wrote:I know a lot has been said in this forum about different measurements and their importance to the game of basketball. I think that a lot of people, myself included, don't really understand what some of these measurements and numbers mean in relation to each other and to someone's game as a whole. For me, I was looking at the measurements of Jeff Green and Kevin Love, and Love has three inches of standing reach on Green, but Green has two inches of wingspan on Love. When I think of Love and Green, I don't think that Green has the more elongated chest. I was hoping that someone like a Slick Watts could help some of us basketball laymen up our knowledge of some of these measurables.

I think you can tell somebody's standing reach compared to somebody else just by looking at their body proportions. As we already know, a taller player with long arms (and possibly wingspan too) may have lower standing reach than a shorter player with shorter arms. That's because the taller guy could have a very, very long neck (resulting from sloping shoulders) and head. Keep in mind that the length of a person's neck is more apparent than real. The higher and more square the shoulders are the shorter the neck will appear. Lower, more sloping sloping shoulders results in the illusion of a longer neck.

Having a bigger standing (or more importantly SR) is obviously more important than raw height because you don't play basketball with the top of your head.