Basketball players have been using height to their advantage for as long as basketball has existed. But what makes Kemba Walker different from almost everyone who came before him is that he’s not good because he’s tall. He’s good because he’s small.

Walker is not small small. He is NBA small. The point guard of the Charlotte Hornets is 6-foot-1, which means he’s nearly always defended by five players who look down on him. But that has become a problem—for them. Walker is at his best when he’s at his smallest.

“Me being a smaller point guard,” Walker said, “I can get to spots on the floor that a lot of others can’t.”

He’s become one of the league’s most efficient players in the league’s most effective play. Walker scores more than anyone who’s in the pick-and-roll as much as him, and he’s in the pick-and-roll more than anyone who scores as much as him. And it’s because he shrinks.

That’s his game. Walker doesn’t play above the rim. He stays beneath his defenders because he knows they can’t keep up with him down there.