There aren’t a lot of words that accurately describe Marlon Taylor’s game that do him justice — Sir Elton John’s classic “Rocket Man,” where a man spends so much time up in flight alone, is a better description for the junior guard.
Certainly, Taylor must feel alone when he’s jumping high up into the outer reaches of the stratosphere for a put-back dunk. A more recent song brings that same understanding of Taylor: Drake and Future’s “Jumpman,” appropriately named after Michael Jordan’s Air Jordan brand.
Rocket man, jumpman, space jam and other corny song references aside, it doesn’t matter. The LSU swingman and his recent flourishing success have been intertwined with the LSU basketball team’s current win-streak.
Taylor’s impact cannot be understated.
Since Taylor has been inserted into the starting line-up, the Tigers are a perfect 7-0 dating back to after their last loss at Houston, a game in which they led for most of the second half.
Since becoming a starter, the junior guard has seen his offensive production go up, but it is his defensive intensity and what he brings in his shot-blocking and rebounding abilities that has propelled the Tigers on this current run.
While you can rattle off the statistics and pull up his gravity-defying dunks on YouTube that would surely make you think he’s a transformer in disguise with mechanical springs for legs, there is actually more than what meets the eye when it comes to Taylor.
When you watch him cut to the basket without the ball and practically levitate to catch a pass for a dunk, you would think he’s made that play out of second nature like he’s done it his entire life. That isn’t exactly the case.
Taylor has only been playing organized basketball since his sophomore year of high school. Baseball was his first and favorite sport growing up
“Basketball just wasn’t me,” Taylor said. “I didn’t find it fun at that time.”
It was early on when Taylor figured out he could do some things athletically that some of the other kids couldn’t, he explained.
“Gym class seventh grade, 12 years old is when I figured out I could dunk it,” Taylor said.
With junior college transfers, there’s always a transition adjustment they have to make to their new environment and elevated skill of their new competition, but Taylor points out that he was ready and knew that he would be able to make an impact before he even got to LSU.
“Not to be cocky, but I felt like I could really help this team out,” Taylor said.
“It was a big transition. The game is way faster and there’s better players — way better players.”
Taylor’s numbers speak for themselves. Since arriving at LSU, the junior guard has averaged 21.7 minutes per game and has shot and posterize dunked his way into an impressive and out of this world 49.4 shooting percentage from the field.
The two most popular questions Taylor gets asked these days by the media and fans are things like, “How much is your vertical?” and “How high can you jump?” He’ll tell you he honestly doesn’t know the answer to either, and if he does know, he keeps that number a secret like a social security number.
Right now the only number that matters to him is the win column, and it’s plain to see why his rise and the team’s success have both risen the Tigers to the top of the Southeastern Conference standings here in mid-January.