NBA: Aron Baynes will eat your children

Big times don’t get much bigger. Aron Baynes is going man-on-man with arguably the greatest player in history, LeBron James.

Australia’s Aron Baynes shuts down a masked Joel Embiid last week

Aron Baynes was born in the seaside New Zealand town of Gisborne, adopted the nationwide tradition of getting the worst possible haircut at any given time, moved to far north Queensland, went to high school at Mareeba and Cairns, stood in the back row of class photos while the midgets were down the front, entered the US college system with Washington State and played in front of a banner that read: “Baynes Will Eat Your Children”.

The 208cm, 118kg monster — lovely bloke, apparently — entered the 2009 NBA Draft but nobody wanted a bar of him. He packed his bags and spent the next four years representing clubs that did not necessarily have NBA-scale prestige. He spent a season with Lietuvos Rytas Vilnius. He was moved on. A year with EWE Baskets Oldenburg in Lithuania. Moved on. EWE Baskets Oldenburg in Germany. Moved on. Ikaros Kallitheas in Greece. Moved on. Kosarkarski Klub Olimpija in Slovenia. Moved on — to the San Antonio Spurs and the place every basketballer wants to be. The NBA.

Now he’s in the starting five for the Boston Celtics in today’s opening game of the Eastern Conference Finals at The Garden. Big times don’t get much bigger. He’s going man-on-man with arguably the greatest player in history, LeBron James, after effectively shutting down Philadelphia giant Joel Embiid last week. Baynes has not a skerrick of the electrifying skill of James — who does? — but he’s forged his reputation, career and multimillion-dollar contract on the sort of physicality that might otherwise have him up for State of Origin selection.

He’s occasionally been mocked in the US as the most posterized player in the NBA. That doesn’t mean he’s the bloke whose poster is on the most bedroom walls. It means he’s the defensive player who’s most often dunked over. But James has tangled with him before, copped a few bruises, and even though the Australian cannot claim to have tamed the king — who can? — he’s made his presence felt.

Baynes and the 203cm, 113kg James collided heavily in the first quarter of their most recent clash. James doubled over in pain and hobbled off the court. The disruption was fleeting, with James promptly returning to pour in 24 points in 28 minutes as the Cavs belted the Celtics 121-99, but he conceded Baynes was nothing if not a willing competitor. “I took a knee to the quad,” James said. “Kind of a knee to the side of a knee. Baynes is a big boy, man. In his off time, he should be on Game of Thrones.”

We’re unsure of the child-eating, Thrones-worthy Baynes’ address in Boston but like every other Australian player in the NBA, he’s been living in the shadow of Ben Simmons. Now he’s the last man standing and smack-bang in the centre of the biggest story in American sport — James’s attempt to get the Cavs back into the NBA finals.