Bazemore, Sefolosha Thriving With Help From Hawks Assistants

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Kent Bazemore did not know what to expect when he first met Hawks assistant coach Ben Sullivan. 

Bazemore came to Atlanta in the 2014 offseason after he had shown promise with the Los Angeles Lakers as an energetic wing defender who amped up the team's fast break.

Still, when he arrived here as a free agent, he hadn't fully developed his skill set as a shooter. Sullivan, one of the Hawks' assistant coaches who works with the players on their shooting, laid out a plan to remedy that gap. Bazemore recalled Sullivan's candor at that meeting.

"When I first got here, the first thing he said – and I had known him for two minutes – was, 'Your jump shot is ugly, we're going to change it,'" Bazemore said with a grin.  

"It was when I first met the guy," Bazemore added. "I was like, 'Okay, I like this guy.'"

In the same offseason, the Hawks traded for Thabo Sefolosha. Sefolosha brought to Atlanta his reputation as a shutdown defender, as evidenced by his spot on the NBA's All-Defensive 2nd Team in 2009-10. If there was an area for refinement in the game of the prized veteran, though, it was in his shooting mechanics. 

A multi-year developmental process – one where the players work through a regimen laid out by the coaching staff – has begun to pay its most visible dividends. Sefolosha is shooting a team-high 54.5 percent from the field. Bazemore has become one of the team's most reliable three-point shooters, converting them at a 40.2 percent clip.

Both developments are timely. With the departure of DeMarre Carroll after a 60-win season, one big challenge facing the Hawks this season was to find a shooter to pair on the wing with Kyle Korver. The Hawks didn't find a reliable replacement. They found two.

Sullivan and Head Coach Mike Budenholzer readily assigned primary credit to Bazemore and Sefolosha and the work they put into their craft, but Budenholzer also acknowledged the contribution of the coaching staff.

"All of the assistant coaches put a lot of time and effort in with the shooting, Ben Sullivan in particular," Budenholzer said. "It's his area that he's been given. Our players know that there's a plan and a lot of thought behind anything that he's asking them to do to improve their shot."

Sefolosha expressed the same sentiment.

"With the coaching staff that we have, you have no other option but to improve and grow," Sefolosha said. "That's what has been fun for me. I love to learn and add things to my game. They've been great, and Ben has been a big part of it."

Sullivan spent two years in San Antonio in 2012 as a video intern for the Spurs. It was there that he got to learn from the coach famous for helping Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard improve their outside shots.

"The biggest influence on shooting and the way that I teach shooting came from my time in San Antonio with Chip Engelland," Sullivan said. "Chip is a master and the well-renowned shooting coach of the Spurs, and I was fortunate enough to spend two years working with him closely."

He said that the process which the Hawks' assistants use eventually progresses from basic mechanics to practicing shots with motions that copy the flow of the Hawks' offense.

"You start with the offense and the player and break it all the way down into little bitty pieces that you're working on," he said. "Then you build it back up so that by the time they get into the game, it looks like they're not even thinking. They're just stepping into things and just doing them naturally because they've worked on them."

Bazemore said that he limits his practice of standstill shots in favor of those that mimic game action.

"You can shoot from spots all day long by yourself and make a ton of them," Bazemore said. "(You need to) shoot them in live action when your feet aren't as perfect as they should be, or you're fading away or you're drifting, or you're tired from five down-and-backs; that's the only way you're going to see results. When you're shooting, you're trying to get as close as you can to that perfect feet-shoulder-width-apart, knees-bent, elbow-in (position). You try to get there every time, and the best shooters in the world can get there. You look at Steph Curry and you look at Kyle Korver, Kyle shoots in the exact same way that it's almost identical every time. As you learn how to shoot and your body picks up that muscle memory, you get more comfortable with your jumper, and you get closer and closer to that perfection when a lot of your shots will fall."

One fact mentioned by the coaching staff is that summer work is particularly important for training shooters. Coaches and players are hesitant to make significant changes to shot mechanics during the grind of the regular season. Schedule breaks and extended developmental time are rare in an 82-game season. Instead, bigger shot overhauls are saved for the summer. 

"In an offseason, there are things that you can do that you aren't comfortable or wise to do in-season," Budenholzer said.

At the same time, improving jump shots in the summer requires a significant commitment from the players themselves during the one part of the year when they're allowed to have a bit of downtime away from basketball.

And even though Bazemore and Sefolosha have been willing to put in the time, injuries have caused their summers to be a bit of a mixed bag. Bazemore's 2014 offseason was limited by his rehabilitation from a torn foot tendon. He didn't get the chance to work as much on his shot as he would have liked. Being healthy for the subsequent summer certainly helped him. His offseason work readied him to take shots with a higher degree of difficulty, shots that he can take even when opponents get a good closeout.

"(Last season) I was making a lot of corner 3s and wide-open 3s," Bazemore said. "Now I'm starting to make shots with guys running at me or (after) a shot fake and dribble."

Sefolosha's 2015 offseason started in April under the worst of circumstances. But before the playoffs ended, Sefolosha began to work on his shot even though he couldn't bear weight on his leg. AP writer Paul Newberry took a memorable photo of Sefolosha practicing his shot release while sitting on a knee scooter. 

"It was form-shooting, but it was also getting my mind in a good place," Sefolosha said.

That type of connection isn't uncommon between the players and assistant coaches. Sometimes the best way to communicate a basketball idea has very little to do with basketball.

"Besides the basketball part, there's just a human part that you connect with," Sullivan said. "There's a trust and a relationship and a chemistry side that's just as important as anything you do on the court."

As 2015 winds to a close, Bazemore and Sefolosha will look to take their year-long efforts and successes and roll them over into 2016, and somewhere close by the assistant coaches will be ready to guide them on their way. 

"Ben is a terrible teacher," Sefolosha joked. "I'm just a great student."

Story by KL Chouinard
Twitter: @KLChouinard

 

http://www.nba.com/hawks/features/bazemore-sefolosha-thriving-help-hawks-assistant

[Jody23]

Bazemore has definitely put the work in and it shows.  And Thabo is looking good too this soon after such a major injury.  Big tip of the cap to the staff for their part in it.

[Dejay]

Imagine that. A Hawks' coaching staff that actually works on a player's development. A far cry from the days when Osh would go unchecked, Stacey Augmon would go years without learning how to shoot much less use his right hand, and when Marvin spent his offseasons at UNC playing hoops and watching cartoons...

[benhillboy]

The thought of players improving never even dawned on me until the middle of the Spurs dynasty.  They were plucking players from any and everywhere and winning.  

I'm from the Magic-Jordan-Bird era when guys were well-developed in college.  It's terribly needed in today's NBA with these one-and/done knuckleheads.  

We're two steps ahead of the league: we have one of the top 3 developmental programs and we only bring in class guys willing to put in the work and  actually trust and respect authority.  After seeing Demarre and Paul they're likely hungry for hefty pay raises, too, that helps.

[macdaddy]

Let's see more of the 2-3 Baze-Thabo lineup.  

[hylndr11]

Lord if Korver could just start hitting these shots, everything will open up and well coast.

[hazer]

7 minutes ago, hylndr11 said:

Lord if Korver could just start hitting these shots, everything will open up and well coast.

He will. But might be best in a sniper roll off the bench like Jamal Crawford. A lineup of Ice Teague, Blaze, Thabo, Sap, and Bawse is formidable.