Given that he started the first 7 games of the season, Orlando Magic power forward Ryan Anderson hasn't exactly flown under the radar, but I get the sense that he's a little undersold in general. After a particularly monstrous preseason performance, I cautioned against ignoring him. More recently, I wrote about his knack for making good things happen on the offensive glass, and commended his work on defense in this game recap. Eddy's gotten in on it too, taking great pains to ensure that he's not thought of as the Magic's latest version of Pat Garrity.
There's another, more fun way to experience Anderson's quietly fantastic play, and it's visual to boot. ieeebear, an occasional contributor to California Golden Blogs, the SB Nation blog dedicated to Anderson's alma-mater, has put together four separate reels of Anderson highlights. He's dutifully posted them all in the FanShots, but I wanted to link each of them individually in this post so they get the attention they deserve. Don't let his unique shooting stroke distract you from his rebounding and deflections, though.
If you haven't had the chance to watch the Magic play very often this year, you probably haven't been able to appreciate Anderson's brief stretches of brilliance. He's played only 467 minutes, which is 9th on the team, yet he's 6th in Win Shares, 2nd in Player Efficiency Rating, 3rd in three-pointers made, and 3rd in True Shooting percentage. He's played so well that I wager most Magic fans don't miss Courtney Lee too much anymore. Given how upset Orlando faithful were when the Magic shipped Lee to New Jersey in the deal that netted Anderson, that's no mean feat.
I look forward to more videos from ieeebear. Here's a list of all of them for you to bookmark, and here's a link to his YouTube channel. Many thanks to him for his contributions to this site.