Daily MVP Film Breakdown: AD’s Ode to the Shammgod
Put Anthony Davis down in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest person to ever bust out the Shammgod.
Did Anthony Davis seriously just pull the shammgod out of his bag?? 😱
📹: @FOXSportsNOLA pic.twitter.com/amjrpaFfHo
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) January 8, 2019
Davis’s dribbling display came in the midst of another ho-hum 36 point, 13 rebound, 3 block performance. The Brow is averaging 31 points and 16 boards in his last ten games, and the Pelicans need every bit of his production to stay afloat. Davis does a ton of special things on the court, and this play is up there with the best of his career.
The Shammgod crossover is named after God Shammgod, who popularized the move playing at Providence. It’s a devastating twist on the timing of a crossover, and never fails to draw oohs and aahs from the crowd.
The player starts by throwing the ball ahead, usually with their off hand. The best ones really throw their shoulders into it before quickly using their other hand to pick the ball off the bounce and go another direction mid-dribble. It almost always catches the defense off guard, and it’s understandable considering you need to put it in slow motion to really see what’s happening.
Shammgod Wells wasn’t the first to do the move named after him, and many have used it to emasculate opponents from AAU to the NBA. However, the list of players who have pulled this off at the highest level is fairly short. It features names like Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul, and Manu Ginobili, guards known for their remarkable and creative ball-handling skills.
To see this ball on a string mixtape move from a man who is allegedly 6’10” with a 7’6″ wingspan is truly jarring, especially because Davis set it up with a dribble handoff that he and most other centers use to literally hand teammates open threes. AD never picked up his dribble though, and instead of handing the ball to the shooter, he used his off hand to throw the ball to his left past his defender.
Another angle of Anthony Davis doing a Shammgod!
(Via @ESPNNBA) pic.twitter.com/nxtEATSRTl
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) January 8, 2019
JaMychal Green turned his hips and shoulders all the way to the sideline and slid to the basket to contain the 18-wheeler hurtling toward it. At the exact moment Green took a slide step down, the big rig pulled out a Tokyo Drift move and boosted through the open lane to the basket.
There are only a few players in the world who possess the size, athleticism, handle, and chutzpah to finish this move this far above the rim. Now we know that Anthony Davis is one of them. Oh yeah, and the Pelicans won 114-95.
