Josh Giddey has long been one of the best inbounders in the league. His knack for fitting passes through tiny windows has drawn the praise of diehard Thunder fans, and he's starting to get national attention for how good he is at that particular skill.
That attention came about in a somewhat strange way after a tweet and odd nickname went viral.
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Josh Giddey: The SLOB Wizard
Giddey's skill in sideline out of bounds passes, abbreviated as SLOB passes in NBA terminology, led to The Athletic's John Hollinger giving him an unintentionally funny nickname over the weekend.
Giddey is a SLOB wizard, gets a crazy one off like this almost every game. https://t.co/HhjEbLo0l6
— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) October 28, 2023
The tweet caught Giddey's attention, and he responded good-naturedly.
A slob wizard is insane😂😂😂😂 https://t.co/g97IVZ8JG3
— josh giddey (@joshgiddey) October 28, 2023
That praise was extremely well-deserved when you look at some of the darts he's thrown over the last calendar year.
Josh Giddey's best inbounds passes
That pass that Giddey threw against the Cavaliers is far from a one-off. He has been firing amazing passes through the teeth of the defense ever since he entered the league.
He's like a quarterback in the pocket who changes arm angles to get passes off into narrow windows.
He also is not afraid to throw it right past a defender's head if they have it turned.
One of Giddey's best attributes is his fantastic poker face. He won't give away the opening that he sees until he gets the ball from the referee.
The best example of this was from the 2022-23 season when he made some small talk with Kings coach Mike Brown milliseconds before firing a laser through the entire defense.
Nobody else in the league is creating passes out of thin air on these inbounds plays like Giddey does on a nightly basis. He's so quick with his reads that the broadcast can't even keep up with where he's throwing it.
The Thunder's SLOB play that helps Josh Giddey look good
What makes Giddey's passes even more impressive is that the defenses should know exactly what's coming.
The Thunder only run one sideline out of bounds play. They have different variations coming off the same basic set, as pointed out by both Tanner Krantz and Bowser2Bowser on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Perhaps you've seen Josh Giddey's dimes on OKC's sideline UCLA play
— Bowser2Bowser (@bowser2bowser) October 29, 2023
Did you know it's the **only** sideline play the Thunder have run?
Or that it flows into (at least) 7 different Pick-and-Roll variations?
Diagrams and clips of OKC's (only) SLOB: UCLA Stagger pic.twitter.com/r3CRtVpmSO
Giddey gets the prettiest of his assists on that UCLA cut, which was made famous by legendary coach John Wooden. It involves a screen at the strong side elbow to set up a dive to the rim. That is the first option out of Thunder inbounds, and if there is a paper-thin opening then Giddey is getting it through every time.
There are many more options out of the set, all of which Giddey has completely memorized. He knows exactly where every player is going to be seconds before they get there, which allows him to fire passes off into the future.
Truly, there is no one else doing it at his level.