Name: Inside Atlanta Hawks forward Cam Reddish's progression
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Inside Atlanta Hawks forward Cam Reddish's progression

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Nov 30, 2020Steph Curry walked over to Brandon Payne, his skills trainer for the past decade, and told him how remarkable and impressive ’s skills package is. What struck Curry is how Reddish, at his size, was able to change speeds with precision and explosion with ease.Payne has worked with Reddish since last summer as Reddish went through his pre-draft process after his lone season at Duke, and that has continued this offseason in numerous workouts in Atlanta, Charlotte, over Zoom and in northern California, which is where Reddish worked out with Curry earlier this month. That explosion Curry and Payne were marveling at wasn’t on display last summer for Reddish because he was still dealing with a nagging groin injury suffered at Duke that culminated with core muscle surgery just weeks before the draft.So this offseason was truly the first time Payne has seen Reddish 100 percent healthy.“It kind of catches you off guard because you’re not expecting a guy at that height to have that kind of foot speed and quickness and change of pace with his feet and with the basketball,” said Payne, the founder of Accelerate Basketball. “Those are things that are really difficult to teach because that is something the player has to have within himself is just the feel and the flow of handling the basketball and getting in and out of changing speeds.”Reddish is entering his second season with the after struggling for most of his rookie season. He likely will be in a battle with fellow sophomore De’ for the starting small forward spot in a lineup that projects to feature , , and .The advanced offensive metrics across the board for Reddish labeled him as one of the worst and least efficient players across the last season. If you watched the Hawks for the first few months of the season, this was true. It was mostly a clank-fest for Reddish, and if it wasn’t for the Hawks making it blatantly obvious that they were going to allow their young players to make mistakes and work through their issues, he wouldn’t have played. He shot 31.8 percent from the field and 26 percent from 3-point range during the Hawks’ first 32 games. Teams sagged off of him and dared him to shoot 3s. He also couldn’t make shots at the rim, finishing in the 18th percentile, according to Cleaning The Glass. And yet, if you also watched the Hawks, there was consistent growth in Reddish month over month, and before the pandemic abruptly ended their season, Reddish started emerging. It appeared he finally figured out what he was supposed to do on the floor and where he was supposed to be. He was much more in control and showed why the organization views him as a building block.From where Reddish was entering the league to Payne’s conversations with him during the season to where Reddish is now with training camp beginning this week, it will be an improved version of one of the Hawks’ most important player.“You’re going to see an additional level of confidence from him because you take that momentum that he had at the end of the season — I kept talking to him a lot about that during our workouts,” Payne said. “He was playing so well during those last 10 games. It wasn’t necessarily always scoring, but with how he moved and how he played, he looked very sure of himself. We talked about using that momentum to kind of slingshot him to the new season. I think you will see additional confidence on top of what he finished with. I think you’ll see a different kid out there.”One of the differences fans might notice is Reddish has grown a bit since last season ended. Payne thought it might have been that Reddish’s hair got longer, but Payne and his staff all confirmed Reddish grew. It’s unclear how much he actually grew, but Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce also confirmed this at the end of minicamp. Reddish’s official height without shoes prior to the start of last season was 6-foot-7.5."𝙃𝙚'𝙨 𝙥𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠."What's the next step for wing Cam Reddish?— FOX Sports: Hawks (@HawksOnFSSE)The one player Young, in a conversation with The Athletic, singled out for having significant growth this offseason was Reddish. Young didn’t offer many details on Reddish’s on-court growth, only to say, “We will see when the season begins.”Payne said his workouts with Reddish primarily have focused on ballhandling and footwork and working on reducing the load time for his catch-and-shoot opportunities. Payne tailors his workouts with his clients to fit how each player fits into his respective team. So while Reddish was in the gym with Curry at the same time, they were doing very different things because their roles aren’t similar. Reddish’s work with Payne mainly consisted of Reddish working from the wings to the corners, as that’s where he mainly operated during his rookie season. Payne helped Reddish refine his “three-second package,” which is where a player has to catch the ball, create space and fire off a shot within three seconds.The majority of Payne’s focus with Reddish comes with his footwork, whether it’s some single movements that get him to the rim or whether it’s more complex, such as creating space that leads to corner 3s or midrange buckets. Because of Reddish’s size and ability, Payne believes there’s no reason to doubt him becoming a well-rounded scorer and not being limited to becoming a catch-and-shoot player on the wing.“We’ll get into combinations that lead to jump shots from the 3-point line, bigger combinations where he can get into the midrange and potentially play with his back to the basket and some fade-type of finishes because he has the size and the ability to shoot that fade shot with confidence,” Payne said. “We’re really working on finishing at all three levels with him. We’re trying to get him comfortable scoring at all three levels because he’s the type of player who can play at all three levels, and not everyone can do that. He can.”Reddish didn’t go to Payne asking to improve one specific area; the only thing Reddish told Payne at the start of the offseason is that he wanted to improve his consistency. That’s the area in which Reddish and Hunter struggled during their rookie seasons, so they set out for refinement and creating a process and approach that can be replicated. The importance of the little details was one of the main differences Payne saw in Reddish as compared with where Reddish was during the pre-draft process. For example, the intricacies needed to create space for his shot were where Reddish needed work. He also had an issue in which, which negatively affected his balance. That has been rectified, so now he’s advanced to understanding when the right time is to fade, space laterally, using an extra dribble to get more room from the defense and how to properly drive downhill while in control.“All of those things are a lot easier to work on once you have felt NBA defenses on you,” Payne said. “Once you’ve felt the pressure and the leverage they’ll play with and the size and speed they have, you get a better understanding of how far you have to get and how quickly the ball has to get out of your hands. All of those things came into play this offseason.“I don’t think he exactly understood why the details were so important. This offseason, I’ve definitely seen a change in his understanding of little things. Last year, we would stop and I would have to show him things and show him corrections. This year, I was able to make the corrections on the fly and it was all verbal. That’s kind of what I’ve done with Steph. With Steph, we don’t stop and talk a whole lot — it’s more about making corrections on the fly. We’ve done that more with Cam this year. When you’re able to do that, you get more work done in a shorter amount of time. That’s important for a young player like him.”Reddish was fascinating during his rookie season because of how different the first-half version of his game was compared with the second half. In the Hawks’ final 21 games, he averaged 14.6 points and four rebounds on 47 percent shooting from the field and 41.7 percent from 3. Even through the struggles in the first half of the season, he showed himself to be valuable on defense by taking on tough assignments nightly. During the course of the season, Reddish became the Hawks’ go-to option to stop the opposing team’s best wing scorer.It also should be noted that Reddish’s offensive package is still in the early development stages. This will only be his third season playing in more of an off-ball role in which he’s needing to cut and constantly move to get open. He arrived at Duke as a point forward out of high school and was pigeon-holed to more of a catch-and-shoot option alongside and R.J. Barrett.If Reddish can be the player we saw at the end of last season, the Hawks will have landed a steal at No. 10 in last year’s draft. His consistency as a shooter only will raise his value and give the Hawks one of the best two-way wings in the league.“I don’t see him hitting his ceiling any time soon,” Payne said. “He’s got a lot of growth left in him from a skill standpoint and an experience standpoint. He’s got all the tools it takes to become an All-Star. It’s just about putting it all together. As he’s learning and as he’s growing from a skill standpoint, as a professional and growing in his work habits, good things will start happening for him. It’s just a matter of being consistent. That’s really the only thing missing for him is consistency. He’s got to be consistent and confident in everything he does. If he does that then we will start seeing him round a corner this year. I think when he gets to Year 3 and Year 4, we will start seeing him take off.“Once he gets to the point where he’s making perimeter shots consistently, he’s going to be very difficult to handle because as teams come out and really try to pressure him to take that perimeter shot away, it’s going to open things up for him to get to the basket. I really think we’re going to see an improved finisher and a guy who feels comfortable in the midrange, whether it’s facing up or if he has to take a drive and turn it into a back-to-the-basket situation. He’s going to be someone who can score in a lot of different ways. Hopefully, all of those things will come out this year because I truly believe he has the ability to be a big-time difference-maker in the NBA. You’ll start to see it this year.”(Photo: Jason Getz / USA Today)

Nov 30, 2020Steph Curry walked over to Brandon Payne, his skills trainer for the past decade, and told him how remarkable and impressive ’s skills package is. What struck Curry is how Reddish, at his size, was able to change speeds with precision and explosion with ease.Payne has worked with Reddish since last summer as Reddish went through his pre-draft process after his lone season at Duke, and that has continued this offseason in numerous workouts in Atlanta, Charlotte, over Zoom and in northern California, which is where Reddish worked out with Curry earlier this month. That explosion...

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Chris Kirschner

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Inside Atlanta Hawks forward Cam Reddish's progression

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