Player Development

[KB21]

It’s amazing that some fans just absolutely refuse to give Bud any credit.  The guy is the best coach the Hawks have ever had.  There is a lot of revisionist history going on.  

[NBASupes]

2 minutes ago, KB21 said:

It’s amazing that some fans just absolutely refuse to give Bud any credit.  The guy is the best coach the Hawks have ever had.  There is a lot of revisionist history going on.  

He had a lot of flaws but he by far had the best staff and system. He also had a tremendous process as well. Lenny was great. Czar and Hubie were as well. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

2 hours ago, RedDawg#8 said:

If Bud or one of his disciples were here who says we even draft Reddish (or even be in position to draft him).

Bud only ever drafted older college players or extremely raw overseas players. Reddish would not have been his cup of tea. And now that I think about it, out of all of the draftee's in his tenure, who did Bud actually develop in to a good NBA player?

2016	1	21	DeAndre' Bembry	GF	6-5	210	21	Saint Joseph's	Jr *		6
2016	2	44	Isaia Cordinier	G	6-5	197	19	Denain ASC Voltaire (France)	1996 DOB *	ATL to BRK	0
2016	2	54	Kay Felder	PG	5-9	176	21	Oakland	Jr *	ATL to CLE	2
2015	1	15	Kelly Oubre, Jr.	SF	6-6	203	19	Kansas	Fr *	ATL to WAS	8
2015	2	50	Marcus Eriksson	GF	6-7	178	21	BAXI Manresa (Spain)	1993 DOB		0
2015	2	59	Dimitrios Agravanis	F	6-10	210	20	Olympiacos (Greece)	1994 DOB *	ATL to CLE CLE to SAC	0
2014	1	15	Adreian Payne	C	6-10	237	23	Michigan State	Sr		4
2014	2	43	Edy Tavares	C	7-3	265	22	Gran Canaria (Spain)	1992 DOB		2
2013	1	17	Dennis Schröder	PG	6-3	172	19	Basketball Lowen Braunschweig (Germany)	1993 DOB *		10
2013	1	18	Shane Larkin	PG	5-11	175	20	Miami (FL)	So *	ATL to DAL	4
2013	2	47	Raulzinho Neto	PG	6-1	179	21	Acunsa GBC (Spain)	1992 DOB *	ATL to UTH	8
2013	2	50	James Ennis	GF	6-6	215	22	Long Beach State	Sr	ATL to MIA	8

 

Add to this list the draft day trade acquisitions: Lucas Nogiera, Mike Muscala, Lamar Patterson, Taurean Prince.

The best player Bud ever drafted was Dennis Schröder. Prince and Musky are solid pro's. Not even going to mention all the guys we passed on for these projects.

The evidence suggests that Budcox were terrible talent evaluators and overestimated their ability to find and develop talent. JC may have been the best rookie Bud ever coached (Schlenk drafted him) and he still tried to keep him on the bench even though we were clearly tanking that season and he was out playing the scrubs in front of him. 

I honestly give Quin and Bud's assistants the credit for player development and even then it leans heavily towards developing vets more so than rookies. 

That being said, Bud would not have allowed the kind of youth movement that we ended up with, so all of this is moot. 

He was brought here to coach a veteran playoff team that lacked a superstar and get the most out of them.

Trae Young, Cam Reddish, OO, JJ and maybe even AJ would not even be here if Bud had the same draft slots.

Dre and Kev are maybe the only guys that fit in to Bud's prototype and even they may have been too young for his liking.

To his credit, Bud likely would have drafted and kept Luka, but he still would have turned right around and selected Doumboya the next year lol. 

 

Heck of a post.

[AHF]

10 hours ago, RedDawg#8 said:

Demarre Carroll was 27/28 during his time with the Hawks when Quin took him from a no name to a highly paid 3&D wing.

Imagine the untapped growth our “vets” who are still in their mid-20’s could have if he can improve them in a similar fashion as he did with DMC at a similar age.

The biggest change for DMC was more minutes.  (The only significant change other than minutes was his 3pt shot.)

 

[KB21]

I don’t know which is worse.  The constant tearing down of what Bud has done and how great he is as a head coach or the constant tearing down of what Trae has done and how good he is on the court?

[AHF]

8 minutes ago, KB21 said:

I don’t know which is worse.  The constant tearing down of what Bud has done and how great he is as a head coach or the constant tearing down of what Trae has done and how good he is on the court?

I don't know if this is in response to my post but I think Bud did a great job as a head coach and assembled a really strong staff.  But I'm not going to BS you and pretend like DMC wasn't an almost identical player in Utah and Atlanta on a per minute basis.  This isn't hindsight.  I was saying that at the time as well.  Sometimes you get quality players who step into roles with more minutes and they continue to produce with higher minutes almost exactly like they did with smaller volume minutes and DMC was one of those guys.  The only meaningful difference you see in his numbers is with his 3pt shot.

DMC was underutilized in Utah and Ferry was smart enough to see that and Bud was smart enough to give him the bigger role.  That isn't "tearing down" Bud to acknowledge something that obvious.

[Diesel]

 

My referendum on Bud's player development...

I honestly don't think that he is about that.   I mean, who (young NBA player) can you point to in either of his stops that he has developed? 

Let's start with Atlanta:

2017	1	19	John Collins	United States	Wake Forest University
2017	2	41	Tyler Dorsey	United States/ Greece	University of Oregon
2017	2	60	Alpha Kaba	France	KK Mega Basket (Serbia)
2016	1	21	DeAndre' Bembry	United States	Saint Joseph's University
2016	2	44	Isaia Cordinier	France	Denain Voltaire Basket (France)
2016	2	54	Kay Felder	United States	Oakland University
2015	1	15	Kelly Oubre Jr.	United States	University of Kansas
2015	2	50	Marcus Eriksson	Sweden	FC Barcelona (Spain)
2015	2	59	Dimitrios Agravanis	Greece	Olympiacos Piraeus (Greece)
2014	1	15	Adreian Payne	United States	Michigan State University
2014	2	43	Edy Tavares	Cape Verde	Gran Canaria (Spain)
2013	1	17	Dennis Schröder	Germany	Basketball Löwen Braunschweig (Germany)
2013	1	18	Shane Larkin	United States	University of Miami
2013	2	47	Raulzinho Neto	Brazil	Gipuzkoa Basket (Spain)
2013	2	50	James Ennis	United States	Cal State Long Beach

 

Let's look at Milwaukee:

2022	1	24	MarJon Beauchamp	G League Ignite (United States)
2021	2	31	Isaiah Todd	G League Ignite (United States)
2020	1	24	R. J. Hampton	Breakers (Australia)
2020	2	45	Jordan Nwora	University of Louisville
2019	1	30	Kevin Porter Jr.	University of Southern California
2018	1	17	Donte DiVincenzo	Villanova University

 

So from the 2 list combined...  Schröder. 

He tried it with:  Musky, Prince, Bembry, Javon Carter, Pat Connuaghton, and Grayson Allen. 

 

I think his forte is taking vet players and putting them together and maximizing their talent. 

You see that with  DMC, Korver, Teague, Horford,  Millsap, Portis, Holiday...

Guys who play for Bud find their skillset and probably play their best basketball. 

 

About Quin.  I think he is a developer. 

2021	1	30	Santi Aldama	C	6-11	224	20	Loyola (MD)	So *	UTH to MEM	2
2020	1	27	Udoka Azubuike	C	6-10	280	21	Kansas	Sr		3
2020	2	38	Saben Lee	PG	6-2	183	21	Vanderbilt	Jr *	UTH to DET	3
2019	1	23	Darius Bazley	PF	6-9	216	19		*	UTH to MEM MEM to OKC	4
2019	2	53	Justin Wright-Foreman	SG	6-2	190	21	Hofstra	Sr		1
2018	1	21	Grayson Allen	SG	6-4	198	22	Duke	Sr		5
2018	2	52	Vince Edwards	SF	6-8	225	22	Purdue	Sr	UTH to HOU	1

 

But his draft record doesn't say much.   I mean, Azubuike... 

[KB21]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

I don't know if this is in response to my post but I think Bud did a great job as a head coach and assembled a really strong staff.  But I'm not going to BS you and pretend like DMC wasn't an almost identical player in Utah and Atlanta on a per minute basis.  This isn't hindsight.  I was saying that at the time as well.  Sometimes you get quality players who step into roles with more minutes and they continue to produce with higher minutes almost exactly like they did with smaller volume minutes and DMC was one of those guys.  The only meaningful difference you see in his numbers is with his 3pt shot.

DMC was underutilized in Utah and Ferry was smart enough to see that and Bud was smart enough to give him the bigger role.  That isn't "tearing down" Bud to acknowledge something that obvious.

Wasn’t in response to that, but it’s very clear Bud and his staff developed his shooting ability and developed him into the three and D wing role where he was previously played as more of a four.  

[KB21]

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/sports/basketball/secret-to-atlanta-hawks-team-play-nourish-the-individual.html

[KB21]

 

[NBASupes]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

 

My referendum on Bud's player development...

I honestly don't think that he is about that.   I mean, who (young NBA player) can you point to in either of his stops that he has developed? 

Let's start with Atlanta:

2017	1	19	John Collins	United States	Wake Forest University
2017	2	41	Tyler Dorsey	United States/ Greece	University of Oregon
2017	2	60	Alpha Kaba	France	KK Mega Basket (Serbia)
2016	1	21	DeAndre' Bembry	United States	Saint Joseph's University
2016	2	44	Isaia Cordinier	France	Denain Voltaire Basket (France)
2016	2	54	Kay Felder	United States	Oakland University
2015	1	15	Kelly Oubre Jr.	United States	University of Kansas
2015	2	50	Marcus Eriksson	Sweden	FC Barcelona (Spain)
2015	2	59	Dimitrios Agravanis	Greece	Olympiacos Piraeus (Greece)
2014	1	15	Adreian Payne	United States	Michigan State University
2014	2	43	Edy Tavares	Cape Verde	Gran Canaria (Spain)
2013	1	17	Dennis Schröder	Germany	Basketball Löwen Braunschweig (Germany)
2013	1	18	Shane Larkin	United States	University of Miami
2013	2	47	Raulzinho Neto	Brazil	Gipuzkoa Basket (Spain)
2013	2	50	James Ennis	United States	Cal State Long Beach

 

Let's look at Milwaukee:

2022	1	24	MarJon Beauchamp	G League Ignite (United States)
2021	2	31	Isaiah Todd	G League Ignite (United States)
2020	1	24	R. J. Hampton	Breakers (Australia)
2020	2	45	Jordan Nwora	University of Louisville
2019	1	30	Kevin Porter Jr.	University of Southern California
2018	1	17	Donte DiVincenzo	Villanova University

 

So from the 2 list combined...  Schröder. 

He tried it with:  Musky, Prince, Bembry, Javon Carter, Pat Connuaghton, and Grayson Allen. 

 

I think his forte is taking vet players and putting them together and maximizing their talent. 

You see that with  DMC, Korver, Teague, Horford,  Millsap, Portis, Holiday...

Guys who play for Bud find their skillset and probably play their best basketball. 

 

About Quin.  I think he is a developer. 

2021	1	30	Santi Aldama	C	6-11	224	20	Loyola (MD)	So *	UTH to MEM	2
2020	1	27	Udoka Azubuike	C	6-10	280	21	Kansas	Sr		3
2020	2	38	Saben Lee	PG	6-2	183	21	Vanderbilt	Jr *	UTH to DET	3
2019	1	23	Darius Bazley	PF	6-9	216	19		*	UTH to MEM MEM to OKC	4
2019	2	53	Justin Wright-Foreman	SG	6-2	190	21	Hofstra	Sr		1
2018	1	21	Grayson Allen	SG	6-4	198	22	Duke	Sr		5
2018	2	52	Vince Edwards	SF	6-8	225	22	Purdue	Sr	UTH to HOU	1

 

But his draft record doesn't say much.   I mean, Azubuike... 

They didn't even draft most of those players you listed. 

Todd (was), Hampton (den), Porter Jr (cle) never was picked by them. Only Nwora who developed, Donte D who developed, and Beauchamp who is still really young was drafted by the Bucks. The Bucks have generally traded all of their picks for vets. 

I do agree that Bud isn't quite the player development beast that Quin is but he's still top tier at it. Quin is just top 3 with Pop and Spo.

[KB21]

Pop, Bud, Quin, Kenny, Taylor, Darvin, Ime, Mike…etc, the trait that all of these coaches share is that they don’t ever look at a player and say “this is what he is”.  They look at players and believe there is always something that can improve.  

[NBASupes]

1 minute ago, KB21 said:

Pop, Bud, Quin, Kenny, Taylor, Darvin, Ime, Mike…etc, the trait that all of these coaches share is that they don’t ever look at a player and say “this is what he is”.  They look at players and believe there is always something that can improve.  

They are also realistic. They aren't drafting guys they don't think are willing to get better. Everyone they tend to draft has shown significant progress during their time in college or HS. 

[BangHolman]

11 hours ago, KB21 said:

If you want to continue to deny the fact that, due to the path we chose to take, we haven’t developed these young players properly or that someone from the Spurs tree or the Bud tree wouldn’t have been monumentally better than the crap we hired, then that’s on you.  I’m just glad that ownership came to its senses and hired Quin, who is a branch off Bud’s tree as well as Popovich’s tree.  

And Coach K's tree which I think goes overlooked

[KB21]

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

They are also realistic. They aren't drafting guys they don't think are willing to get better. Everyone they tend to draft has shown significant progress during their time in college or HS. 

And that’s where we get into Landry looking for guys that have “Hawks DNA”.  It’s essentially a way of evaluating the player’s humbleness, willingness to be coached, and willingness to work.  
 

Now, you aren’t going to hit on every pick, but the picks you do hit on will develop and produce.  

[RedDawg#8]

12 hours ago, KB21 said:

It’s amazing that some fans just absolutely refuse to give Bud any credit.  The guy is the best coach the Hawks have ever had.  There is a lot of revisionist history going on.  

Bud was a great Head Coach for us. I think history proves he was not equipped as a coach for a youth movement, nor did he want to be involved with one.

Hawks University was as much about developing vets as it was young players. And it was as much about the 5 other future HC’s on his staff as it was anything he did. I think it is telling that the players themselves shouted out Quin personally and not Bud when talking about their improvement in Atlanta.

I think it’s telling that Quin still gets praised for this today by execs and his former players from Utah, meanwhile you don’t get that narrative about Bud anywhere.

Bud is an X’s and O’s guy. Always has been. His system and player/ball movement will always be legendary in my eyes. That is what made him a great coach.

That is also why he wanted older college players and Euros. He wanted guys who played the game the right way. He was not interested in kids from the AU circuit. We had entire threads about this back then and why we avoided prospects who grew up playing iso showcase basketball.

All of this was to prove my point that fantasizing about Bud coaching Cam Reddish is futile. He would have never drafted him. Cam is the poster child for the type of prospect Bud avoided back then.

I don’t know if Bud would even want Cam as a vet right now because he’s not shown any consistency with the fundamentals of basketball. That is the bare minimum to play for coach Bud.

[KB21]

Just because Bud didn’t want to coach a young team that had zero bet leadership doesn’t mean he is averse to developing young players.  While you are giving credit to the assistant coaches, it was Bud that specifically targeted assistants who could develop talent.  Player development was the reason the Spurs were able to sustain success, and Bud brought that dedication back o player development with him.  
 

Also, throwing young players onto the court and having them fail just so you can lose games is NOT player development.  IT’s malpractice if anything 

[Gray Mule]

NBA once had a development league.  They still do.  Changed it's name to G League (Gater Aid).

There is one tam that takes players in lieu of college and it's players are in the draft the next season.

[RedDawg#8]

2 hours ago, KB21 said:

Just because Bud didn’t want to coach a young team that had zero bet leadership doesn’t mean he is averse to developing young players.  While you are giving credit to the assistant coaches, it was Bud that specifically targeted assistants who could develop talent.  Player development was the reason the Spurs were able to sustain success, and Bud brought that dedication back o player development with him.  
 

Also, throwing young players onto the court and having them fail just so you can lose games is NOT player development.  IT’s malpractice if anything 

Not to be combative but that 18-19 team had more vet leadership than we do now.

Vince, Dedmon and his teacher’s pet Bazemore. Not too mention reserves like Lin, Plumlee and Zeller were around 30+

Len, Prince, Bembry and Anderson were all 25+

Bud would have had plenty of vets to lean on. 

[AHF]

11 minutes ago, RedDawg#8 said:

Not to be combative but that 18-19 team had more vet leadership than we do now.

Vince, Dedmon and his teacher’s pet Bazemore. Not too mention reserves like Lin, Plumlee and Zeller were around 30+

Len, Prince, Bembry and Anderson were all 25+

Bud would have had plenty of vets to lean on. 

He wanted a more talented roster that was going do its best to win as many games as possible.  The franchise he came from didn’t do sustained tank jobs.  It did strategic tank jobs and was super lucky with them.  (Two true franchise #1 picks were the core of Pop’s first ring.)  Budcox drove the roster into a ditch and then abandoned ship so he wouldn’t have to endure years of tanking.  I would have been fine with that if he also didn’t demand his full salary to coach another team at the same time.

At the end of the day, though, when Bud was coaching the Hawks did have a player development focus (both vets and younger players and whether Bud was doing to or not I think @KB21 is right to say he hired the assistants who focused on that and deserves credit for it like a GM deserves credit for hiring a good coach).  It didn’t produce any historic development from the young players but vets like Paul Millsap and others added some new features to their game and excelled under Bud.  
 

Im leaving the Bud discussion and more interested in what Quin does this year.  As of now, we have made some curious moves.  We have gotten younger which seems somewhat antithetical to what we are trying for at this stage and have essentially a varsity team of 9 or so players who can be counted on when healthy and a JV team of 5 or so players who can’t be counted on for anything as of today.  It is going to be really interesting to see how the development progresses because while the JV squad needs plenty of it, it is our vets who really need it if we want to elevate this team’s record.  Development for Trae, DJ, Hunter, OO, JJ, Bey, etc. is where the most important work for this season needs to be done.