I have thousands of pages of notes from my years covering the league.
After a while watching that much basketball, you start to notice certain patterns emerging. Stuff that sticks out like a nail in an old boardwalk, subtle until you trip on it and wonder how you could have ever not seen it.
I spend all season putting ideas for this article into a dedicated note, analyzing film and poring through statistical databases. Then, when the summer comes, I go back and dial in on these players and their quirks to make sure they’re real, not just one-off events I happened to catch on a random Tuesday night.
The result is always one of my favorite posts to write. Welcome to the 2026 edition of “NBA players with a surprising skill.” (Click here to find 2025, 2024, and 2023 editions, plus a bonus article I wrote for HoopsHype a few years ago.)
This is for the sickos. There won’t be much about the superstars in here; how much more could I tell you about LeBron James or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander? But if you like getting into the weeds, learning some nitty-gritty stuff, you’ll be happy with today’s output.
As always, remember that I’m not typically saying a player is the best at something (although there are exceptions). This is a compilation of microskills that aren’t well known outside that player’s specific fanbase and that deserve more attention. Where possible, I tried to verify that this was a long-running pattern that stretched across multiple seasons.
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And, as always, if you’ve noticed a surprising skill you want to highlight, drop it in the comments. I love when readers educate me!
Jerami Grant, never dipping
Jerami Grant has become one of the undisputed masters of the no-dip three (a catch-and-shoot jumper where the scorer catches the ball and fires without bringing it down into their normal shooting motion). Here’s a great angle:
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Without access to the deepest level of tracking data, there’s no way to see how Grant stacks up to other no-dippers like Sam Hauser and the now-retired Nic Batum. But anecdotally speaking, I feel like I’ve seen Grant take (and make) more of these than the rest of the league combined.
No-dip threes are a strange skill; in a perfect world, they wouldn’t exist because passes would be on target every time. Perhaps Deni Avdija’s effective but occasionally haphazard drive-and-kicks gave Grant more opportunities to capitalize off errant passes. Regardless, Grant has turned the no-dip three into his signature move.
Justin Champagnie, the putback king
This is a fun one! I’ve talked many times about my love for Justin’s identical twin, San Antonio’s Julian Champagnie, but Justin is a cool NBA player in his own right. He’s played 20+ minutes per game for the Wizards for two straight mostly healthy seasons now, so we have enough sample to crown Justin Champagnie the league’s putback king (non-big-man edition).
No non-center in the league had as many immediate second-chance points as Champagnie’s 112 last season, and he led all non-centers on a per-possession basis, too. Champagnie averaged 3.85 putback points per 100 possessions, more than famed offensive rebounders like Neemias Queta, Domantas Sabonis, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. For further context, 3.85 was more than three times that of noted glass-cleaner Amen Thompson, who is both bigger and one of the freakiest athletes in the league.
Champagnie wasn’t quite as prolific the year prior, but he was still near the top for non-bigs. Hustle is a skill, and Champagnie is aided by rare mid-air ambidexterity; watch him with the lefty putback slam here:
![arpqau_1.mp4 [optimize output image]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!pJto!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b632b02-7c89-41d2-ac16-0b35d5070b15_720x414.gif "arpqau_1.mp4 [optimize output image]")
The Wizards are deeper and should be far more competent this year, but don’t be surprised if Champagnie’s defense, rebounding, and snarling ferocity earn him a real role in Washington’s rotation yet again.
Kris Dunn, mean screens
Using guards as screeners has become standard in every good NBA playbook. However, few small guys dig setting a mean-ass screen quite as much as Kris Dunn. He has no problem tussling with bigger players, sacrificing his body on one play before wrapping up an unsuspecting defender in a blatantly illegal (yet uncalled! Refs rarely pay attention to small guys setting screens) hug on another. No ghost or fake screens here!
Watch this absolutely gorgeous Ty Lue-designed gem. Kris Dunn makes an entry pass to James Harden in the post, then casually cuts to the paint like he’s jogging to the corner. Psych! Casualness turns to cruelty at the drop of a hat, and he blindsides Collin Murray-Boyles in the paint, allowing a cutting Ivica Zubac to draw the foul:
![uq4fzl_1.mp4 [optimize output image]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXuJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdbaea3b-0305-495e-a672-58fb4728ca26_728x414.gif "uq4fzl_1.mp4 [optimize output image]")
Dunn is full of fun traits, from his nasty picks to his hellacious defense to his tendency for at least one completely unnecessary, utterly enjoyable pass per game:
![t1q7to_1.mp4 [optimize output image]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!r6Q-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8cabbe33-936c-4d3b-958a-92a4f31283a3_728x400.gif "t1q7to_1.mp4 [optimize output image]")
You probably won’t watch many Clippers games this year. But when you do, keep an eye on Dunn.
Alperen Sengun, violating lanes
Ok, so this is more of a peccadillo than a skill, but I wanted to talk about it because I discovered a fascinating historical anomaly amidst the dusty, dingy NBA records.
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