‘Excited energy’ for summer league
ATLANTA HAWKS
ATLANTA — At some point, the youthful Atlanta Hawks will exasperate new coach Lloyd Pierce. His young players will make mistakes because of inexperience and inconsistency, and their growing pains will lead to lots of losses.
But that time is not now. It’s summer in the NBA, when incoming rookies and second-year players take center stage on the courts. This is a time when youthful exuberance is an asset that can be used in unofficial games instead of a being a detriment to winning the contests that count.
Pierce wants to take advantage of that as the Hawks practice in advance of summer league play.
“In summer league, you take advantage of their energy,” Pierce said Friday. “They are excited to be out here. They’ve got nervous energy. They’ve got excited energy.”
The Hawks are conducting a minicamp before beginning play in the Utah Summer League on Monday. They practiced Thursday and Friday and were scheduled to do so again Saturday and today. The Hawks also will participate in the Las Vegas Summer League, which begins next weekend.
The Hawks opened a portion of Friday’s practice to media. It was a fast-paced affair that included a 16-second shot clock — eight seconds less than regulation — and lots of transition play.
“They are all young, so I don’t think we need to walk the ball up in summer league,” Pierce said.
The summer squad includes recent first-round draft picks Trae Young of Oklahoma and Omari Spellman of Villanova (Maryland’s Kevin Huerter is out with a hand injury), 2017 draft picks John Collins and Tyler Dorsey, plus in-season pickups Antonius Cleveland and Jaylen Morris. The rest of the roster is made up of players who weren’t selected in the draft last week and two players who were in foreign leagues: Zach LeDay and Alpha Kaba, a second-round draft pick by the Hawks in 2017.
Pierce said everyone on the summer roster will play, but the bulk of the minutes will go to rookies and second-year players.
“We definitely have to focus on the guys on the roster and make sure (of) their chemistry, their cohesiveness and get a lot of minutes,” he said. “We want to collect as much info for all those guys and then give them a player development plan for the rest of the summer.”
As Pierce learns about his new players, the returning Hawks also are getting a read on him and his staff. Pierce, 42, succeeded Mike Budenholzer as coach and only one assistant, Chris Jent, is a holdover from the previous staff. The other assistants are Greg Foster, Marlon Garnett, Matt Hill and Melvin Hunt.
Collins said he’s already seeing a difference with the new coaching staff.
“It’s definitely a lot more (relaxed),” Collins said. “A lot younger, so I think that helps a little bit communication-wise having younger coaches to interact with. You get it a little bit more than (with) older coaches because there’s an age gap.”
The full Hawks squad won’t officially gather until training camp in September, and summer league games are less structured than official ones. But Pierce isn’t waiting to teach his younger players the concepts and principles he will emphasize in his first season as a head coach.
The former Cleveland, Golden State, Memphis and Philadelphia assistant said this weekend’s practices and the summer-league games “also are step one of creating team, creating some chemistry.”
“Our biggest word is ‘touches,’” Pierce said. “A lot of highfives. We want to have connectivity between our players, between our staff. We want to have connectivity with our offense. We are going to be running a lot of motion, especially in summer league, and everybody gets to touch the basketball. We want to have fun playing together, and we also want to be connected.”
Collins and Dorsey are the most accomplished NBA players on the summer roster. Collins was an all-rookie second-team pick, and Dorsey finished the season strong when he got regular playing time as the Hawks leaned heavily on their young players.
Pierce praised Collins for playing in the summer league after a successful debut season, and he said that since he was hired as coach on May 11, Dorsey has been at the team’s practice facility nearly every day.
Dorsey said the new staff is very “hands on” with teaching and that young players are quickly picking up on what Pierce wants.
“Offensively, just attacking early and moving the ball and having great spacing,” Dorsey said. “Defensively, there is different adjustments from last season that he likes to do. Playing more up-tempo, getting into guys more and playing ‘grindier’ on defense.”