Pascal Siakam Reveals the Secrets of his Spin Move

Toronto Raptors star Pascal Siakam goes in depth with Red Bull into how exactly he pulls off his deadly spin move

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

It's been a turbulent season for Pascal Siakam.

After a pair of breakout seasons first as the league's Most Improved Player and then as an NBA All-Star last year, the 2020-21 season hasn't been too kind to the Toronto Raptors star. His defence has fallen off since his MIP season and his offensive game — playmaking aside — just hasn't quite been there this year. He's seen his points per game drop by two points per night and his 3-point shooting has almost vanished.

All that being said, Siakam's bread and butter, his spin move, is sill as deadly as ever.

In a new series with Red Bull, the 27-year-old forward takes fans behind the scenes as he dissects exactly what goes into the making of an all-star caliber spin move.

"The first thing I look at, and I think my speed helps me a lot with it, once I make that first move, just try to recover, give them a little hit to the body, and after that I just naturally spin off them," Siakam said. "It's a feel, there's just a feel of how they're guarding me and once their body is leaning one way I can go to the other side."

That spin move and its continued development is one of the reasons Siakam has seen his isolation scoring improve this season. He's able to drive into defenders, feel how they're defending him, and then spin the moment he feels them shift their weight to stop his attack.

As long as he has that tool in his toolkit he's going to be a very useful inside scorer, the key for him next season will be getting that 3-point shooting back to where it was just last year.

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