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Inside Kevin Huerter’s mindset: ‘I can be up there with the top shooters in the league’



One of the ways the Hawks are showing trust is by wanting Huerter to have the ball in his hands more, which we saw sparingly in his rookie season. It’s a position that Huerter feels comfortable in. He played point guard in high school...The Hawks want Huerter more involved in the offense this year and want him to be more aggressive with creating his own opportunities. There were too many occurrences when Huerter would flourish on offense, like his coming-out game on the road against Philadelphia, then go quiet.

Each returning player on the Hawks’ roster was given a player progression sheet at the start of offseason conditioning in May, and one of the points of emphasis for Huerter was finishing at the rim better than he did in his rookie year. He made just more than 50 percent of his attempts at the rim, well below the league average of 57.9 percent.

Huerter was disappointed this past season that he shot only 38.5 percent from 3-point range. He says 40 percent from distance should be the lowest he ever shoots in a season.

“I feel like that’s something that’s not easy, but it’s something I should be doing every year,” Huerter said while preparing to head to Rhode Island to train with Hawks assistant Nate Babcock. “It’s well within my range, but I feel like I can shoot above that and be up there with the top shooters in the league, percentage-wise. As I get to be in the league for a couple more years, my body should get stronger, too. But 40 percent is my low point of where I should be shooting it. I should be shooting over 40 percent, for sure.”

Kevin Huerter’s greatness begins with his nuclear shooting profile. Few NBA players have a greater level of shot diversity than Huerter. He can shoot off of any and every imaginable action, from spot-ups to pull-us. As a rookie, Kevin Huerter is on his way to becoming a pull-up dynamo. The pull-up three is the deadliest shot in basketball and Huerter already nears mastery.

Last season, he placed in the 90th percentile on jumpers off of the dribble; only six players placed ahead of him in points per possession, those being Steph Curry, Rudy Gay, DJ Augustin, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin and Damian Lillard (minimum 100 possessions).

More than being a fantastic player himself, Kevin Huerter’s synergy with Trae Young raises his ceiling. Few teams feature two players as dynamic of shooters and passers as Young and Huerter. Both of these players have the shooting gravity to bend the defense to submission and the passing gene to exploit the windows each other creates. Young is in an exclusive group of shooters who pull the defense far beyond the line with his range, with Steph Curry and Damian Lillard being the other two prominent ones. His vertical spacing opens up the floor for the rest of his teammates, generating a myriad of easy shots.

Improved Strength is the key to unlocking Kevin Huerter’s game

Among the host of wings selected in the teens of last year’s NBA Draft, none was more impressive than Kevin Huerter this past season.

Many have even pegged him as the Atlanta Hawks’ second-best prospect behind Trae Young.

...there’s certainly a case to be made for Huerter and it largely hinges on his versatile shooting stroke. He shot 38.5 percent on 353 attempts from 3-point range, delighted with secondary playmaking chops and displayed impressive team defense instincts. He ranked in the 73rd percentile (1.07 points per possession) on spot-ups and was in the 90th percentile (1.063 PPP) on off-the-dribble jumpers in the half-court. Among 124 players with 100-plus attempts off the dribble, Huerter finished seventh in PPP. That duality allows him to operate off the ball next to Young or patiently survey the court with a few dribbles before creating airspace to jack up long balls.

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The merits of Huerter’s shot-making don’t extend inside the arc, though. He knocked down just 45.7 percent of his 2-point attempts. Further evidence of those struggles is the fact he shot 37.7 percent on pull-up 3s but only 32.8 percent on pull-up 2s.His substandard productivity inside the arc stems from two primary factors: a lack of strength and sub-functional handle (notably with his left hand). Both influence his interior scoring.

Huerter will be just 21 years old when the 2019-20 season starts. It’s quite realistic that he makes advanced strength gains to the point of enhancing his dribble-drive arsenal. But he’s missing short-burst athleticism on horizontal and vertical planes, which enforces a definitive ceiling on his finishing at the rim.

Huerter’s dissonance as a pull-up shooter can be corrected by added core strength and newfound comfort in his load-up process, the latter of which helps him maintain balance when quickly decelerating. For the time being, those setbacks limit his ceiling as a shooter.

Q: Who’s the most likely candidate to break out this season?

Chris Kirchner wrote:While his rookie season shouldn’t be classified as anything other than a success...I still think we have only seen a glimpse of Kevin Huerter’s potential, and he’s my pick to have a breakout year. For the most part, Huerter was just a 3-point shooter last season and was ineffective when he drove to the rim. If I am to believe what Huerter and his trainer told me a few weeks ago, driving to the rim and absorbing contact shouldn’t be as big of an issue as it was in his rookie season. If he can score in the paint more effectively this year, that’s only going to make him that much more valuable for this team.

Not only do I expect his offense to get better, his play-making abilities and his defense should also take a step up from last year.

Jamaaliver wrote:

Q: Who’s the most likely candidate to break out this season?

Chris Kirchner wrote:While his rookie season shouldn’t be classified as anything other than a success...I still think we have only seen a glimpse of Kevin Huerter’s potential, and he’s my pick to have a breakout year. For the most part, Huerter was just a 3-point shooter last season and was ineffective when he drove to the rim. If I am to believe what Huerter and his trainer told me a few weeks ago, driving to the rim and absorbing contact shouldn’t be as big of an issue as it was in his rookie season. If he can score in the paint more effectively this year, that’s only going to make him that much more valuable for this team.

Not only do I expect his offense to get better, his play-making abilities and his defense should also take a step up from last year.

The Athletic

“Hopefully playing a little bit more point guard this year, we’ve been talking about that,” he explains. “Or at least having the mindset to do that—trying to get other guys involved, put the ball on the floor and make plays.”....
....At some point, Huerter plans to get in the gym with Wade to develop his post game. He spent the summer building strength, working on his finishing ability at the rim, and, of course, making some media appearances. That part is something he’s going to have to get more used to.