Warriors' Ezeli is emerging as a defensive force
Golden State Warriors center Festus Ezeli made a national statement on Wednesday night by emphatically blocking the dunk attempt of Los Angeles Clippers star Blake Griffin.
Griffin has made a career of embarrassing big men who rotate over late and try to block his shot. That's exactly what Ezeli did. But he leveraged his size, length and athleticism to thwart Griffin's dunk.
"Every time I jump, I feel like I have a pretty good chance," Ezeli said.
"Not a lot of people can go do that in the league," Harrison Barnes said of Ezeli blocking Griffin, according to the Bay Area News Group. "To be able to start off the season healthy, get a lot of minutes, and be able to do your thing, his confidence goes through the roof."
Barnes is right. Not many players can protect the rim that way, and those who can are properly compensated. Ezeli, who will be a restricted free agent next summer (as will Barnes), projects to earn over $10 million annually on the open market.
That might sound ridiculous for a backup, but that's the thing: Ezeli shouldn't be a backup for long. The Warriors are grooming him to supplant Andrew Bogut as the team's starting center, but the move could happen earlier than we expect.
In a lot of ways, this seems similar to the situation Marcin Gortat was in backing up Dwight Howard. The Magic ultimately let Gortat go -- which may have been a mistake -- but the Warriors are trying to prevent that from happening.
"His job is to block shots, so don't get got," Andre Iguodala said. "They're going to pay you a lot of money to protect the basket."
