Standing reach vs. height question

If you can play, you can play. Kevin Willis was very, very good for, what, 12+ years in the league, and played 20ish total?

Is it better to have long monkey arms instead of short trex arms relative to your frame? Absolutely.

 

source?

 

I wish a bunch of Rox fans had watched PJ in college, he was a wrecking ball.

 

Science.

 

Where may one purchase long monkey and short Trex arms that I can make relative to my frame?

I would like to science, please

 

If they were for sale everyone would have some....come on, that's no kinda science I've ever heard of.

 

Longer arms is not just for blocking but passing lanes and disrupting the dribble.
I would take a 6'9 guy over a 7 footer if their standing reach is identical because it's more likely that he can move his feet better to defend quicker players.

 

But I have a long wingspan lol

 

or like this Miles McBride (Knicks) at a height of 6'2" with a
6'9" wingspan (Michael Jordan wingspan)

 

7 foot wingspan sucks for a center, no matter the height.

Harden and PJ had +6'11 wingspans for comparison.

 

So do orangutans.

But they're still orangutans.

 

I think a big issue with standing reach for bigs is injuries. I looked at this like five years ago in the draftexpress combine database. Dudes like Blake and Noah, for example, have very short standing reaches—8'9" I believe. And the avg big was about 9'0". There was so little data you can't state anything with confidence, but as I scanned through the short-armed bigs I saw tons of injury guys. It makes sense, right? They have to use more power to jump those extra 3" to dunk the ball or to out-jump another guy for a rebound. And that's an extra 3" of falling time/force multiplied by tens of thousands of leaps. If Zion is still an above-the-rim player at 30 I'll be pleasantly surprised. Compare that with Dwight, who's only like 6'9.5" I think, in that database, but I believe his standing reach was 9'3.5". So however banged up he gets, even as he ages, he's an elite finisher. He just doesn't have to jump nearly as high, doesn't have to have the same timing, doesn't have to move as quickly. Higher-than-average standing reach is an enormous advantage.

In contrast, I think height is just about passing vision. Fwiw, Voulgaris tweeted years ago that he had done a statistical study on Battier's style of putting a hand in the jump-shooters face rather than extending his hand towards the shot like most defenders do. He said Battier's style was ineffective.