There are two players that NBA teams call when they're trying to teach their big men how to score in the paint. One is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the other is Hakeem Olajuwon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is almost 70 years old, and he may still have better post moves than the NBA's new generation of face-up centers who like to float away from the paint and towards the three-point arch. The Phoenix Mercury probably won't have any issues with getting its new center to score in the post. On Wednesday, the most dominant college center in women's college basketball history received tutelage from Abdul-Jabbar during her first week in a WNBA training camp.
Kevin Durant's got a release that extends into the rafters, but Abdul-Jabbar's sky hook was the most unblockable shot in league history. Now he's teaching it to Griner. I'm not sure if Griner's ever had a single shot blocked in her entire life, but if this is part of her repertoire moving forward, that's one less thing she ever has to worry about and the entire league might as well surrender to her for the next decade.
Via ESPN:
Looking up to someone for one of the few times in her basketball life, Brittney Griner leaned into the 7-foot man in front of her, watching and listening as he flipped in one hook shot after another.
Once he was done, Griner took a turn, spinning and flipping up a few hooks of her own over outstretched arms that reached farther than her own lengthy ones.
After getting a crash course in professional basketball from some of the WNBA's best players over the past week, Griner was given the lesson of a lifetime on Wednesday with a one-on-one session on the skyhook with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
One of the NBA's greatest players teaching the nuances of perhaps the most unstoppable move in any sport? Yeah, that's pretty cool.
"I went to legend school today and it was awesome," Griner said at the Phoenix Mercury's practice court inside the US Airways Center.
