Article 216: Giddings has a high ceiling

June 15, 2011

Last year, the Oakland Rebels 17U team had as their featured big man Brendan Keane who is headed for Northern Colorado. This year's squad has someone of similar build in center Tanner Giddings who is 6-foot-9 and 215 pounds. He plays a similar style as Keane as Giddings can bench press 225 pounds, squat 300 pounds, and has a vertical of 27 inches.

Playing for his Windsor High Jaguars in the Sonoma County League (SCL), Giddings may not get as much exposure. Despite that, his Jaguars finished a respectable 18-10 as they progressed far into the playoffs before losing to Pinole Valley High. Giddings averaged a double-double as he had 16 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 assists per game.

Windsor Coach Steve Kramer has this perspective on Giddings, "Tanner's strengths are his size, speed, quickness and agility. He also has very good hands. He is faster than our guards and he is 6-9. He has improved tremendously over the last few months due to work in the weight room and his commitment to improving his jump shot. Mike Farmer (former USF star and NBA player) has worked countless hours with Tanner on his shooting and it is paying off. Over the last two years, Tanner has been successful scoring and rebounding and blocking shots. Most of his points were from offensive rebounds and back to the basket moves but over the last weekend in a tournament at Sonoma State, he scored in a number of different ways. Hitting jump shots, jump hooks, off rebounds and put backs, driving to the basket. He was impressive."

With his size and solid productivity, he decided to join the Oakland Rebels to get the necessary recruiting exposure. His Rebels will have July trips to Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Southern California to play in front of college coaches during the NCAA sanctioned evaluation period. These four tournaments will provide him the opportunity to showcase his skills and create interest from schools all over the country.

In the short time that he has coached him, Oakland Rebels Coach Ryant Diew says, "Tanner's strengths include his ability to run the floor, his rebounding, and his shot blocking. He is also extremely agile for a player of his size. On the court, he's a very competitive player who continues to get better each time he takes the court. Off the court, he has been a pleasure as well. He wants to get better. He's the type of player that looks you in the eye when you are talking to him and is very receptive to coaching. As for college, I believe that he's a definite Mid-major D-1 prospect. His upside is tremendous. If he can continue to develop on the offensive end, I think that he's going to be an absolute steal for some program."

Giddings considers himself to be a power player because he can use his size and strength to get to the basket easily. His best skills are being able to run the floor and knowing where the basketball is at all times and pursue it. During this summer, he plans to work on his jump shot, free throws, and hook shot the most because he wants to have a wide variety of moves to be able to use in different situations. He compares his game to high school turn NBA players, Kevin Garnett or Amare Stoudemire. Giddings believes this because he has an upbeat style of game and is good around the basket and far away from the basket.

This 2012 prospect has been a starter since his sophomore year for Windsor. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (Joe Callero) and Yale University (Jamie Snyder) are the only programs in contact with him. He wants to play in an upbeat style of play as he likes to run the floor and have a lot of fast break plays. He would like to stay on the sunny, west coast but is not against moving to any part of the country. He has a 3.00 GPA and wants to major in Business.

Coach Kramer has this take on Giddings' college outlook, "I think he can play at the Division I level. He still must get stronger and keep developing his game but he really has only been seriously playing for 3 years so I think he will continue to get better every year he is in college. Whoever gets him will be lucky because he will show up ready to work every day with a good attitude. He is a solid student as well. He wants to succeed in whatever he does. I would like him to develop a bit of mean streak and play tougher at times. I want to have a little nastiness to him. Great kid. He is what you would want your son to be like."

Giddings had to endure a broken right arm injury right before the start of his freshman season. As a result, he was able to work on his left handed moves for basketball. His individual goals are to win MVP of SCL while averaging 20 points and 15 rebounds in leading his team to winning the SCL and going to the NCS Finals.

The natural bell curve has a limit in terms of people who are tall and who have above average basketball skills. Giddings fits these two criteria. As a result, expect the ceiling to be figuratively and literally higher for him in his college basketball recruiting process in Windsor during this upcoming season.