“Today Was Day One.” | Kevin Hanson Summer League Sound | 07.06.25

“Today Was Day One.” | Kevin Hanson Summer League Sound | 07.06.25

Kevin, how’s the feel been the first couple days of kind of the summer league training camp?
I mean, day today was day one. It was awesome and great energy. Um, we went long, a good two and a half hour practice and guys went hard. Um, but the guys were responded well, played uh played pretty well as a team for the first day. You expect it to be pretty sloppy on the first day and it was it was better than I expected. So, that was that was a good positive sign. TJ at the end of the season talked quite a bit about this being just a big summer for him. What’s kind of your guys’ expectations for TJ, what you’re looking for him or out of him for a summer league?
Well, I mean, we expect him to probably be our leading scorer. I mean, that that would be my my guess. I mean, his ability to get downhill and just score the ball in a bunch of different ways. Um, but we really want to see him defend. Um, you know, we’re going to put him on some tough tasks out there. Um, and we want to see him take those tests on wild scoring as well. You got to do both. You gota be a two-way player. So, yeah, it is a big summer for him. Uh, he had a great practice today. Um, but it’s, you know, it’s going to be hard for him, too, because he’s probably going to be the focal point of every team’s defense. So, it’ll be fun to watch him navigate through that.
And how’s Rob kind of doing in the first practice? And, I mean, he has a big summer ahead of him as well. I mean, Finch and Connley both spoke of their hope for him to kind of take that next step this season. Yeah, I mean we just we need him to run the team. Um and he did a great job of that today. He wasn’t he wasn’t forcing a lot. I think he learned a lot this season under Mike’s tutelage. Um you know, we want him to defend at a high rate. Um you know, he can’t be a minus. We want him to be a plus out there defensively. So he he was working hard um and running the team well. It seems like, you know, slowed down a little bit for him. Um and it was pretty pretty fast-paced out there today. It’s comfortable.
Anyone out there today that kind of surprised you? I mean, you have the the young kids that you drafted. You have the Irish point guard over here. I mean, there’s kind of a lot of people with different stories. Anyone that really kind of caught your eye today? Yeah, I was pretty impressed with the with the Irish CJ. I mean, he is a true point guard, so that kind of stands out in today’s game. There’s not a whole ton of true point guards. He kind of reminds me of TJ McConnell.
Um, just not as aggressive to score. So, you know, we we’ll get him going in that regard. But I mean, he’s got all the reads. Um, you know, there’s a lot of new faces out there. There was just a lot of guys competing really hard. It was awesome to watch.
I hear it’s in his blood. His grandpa’s like a Hall of Fame European point guard and really and coach. So, I I guess he comes from a good pedigree from what I’ve heard.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and Kane was really good. I mean, he was super competitive. Him and TJ were going at it. That was fun to watch. It was just It was a good first day.
What about Yan? What What have you seen from him so far? What’s it been like getting to know him?
Um, we’re still waiting on on clearance with him. Yeah. So,
tomorrow we should have him and Rocco ready to roll
and uh we have two practices tomorrow. So, that’s kind of why we did one today just so they can get sped up real quick tomorrow.
Just going back to Rob, what have your conversations been like with him and and has he laid out kind of just kind of early on what he wants to accomplish?
He hasn’t really laid on laid out what he wants to accomplish. you know, it’s been more uh but we’re going to have continued dialogue through throughout. Um yeah, I mean the dialogue basically has just been like I want him to be aggressive like but the ball’s going to be in his hands a lot so he’s got he’s got to run the team. He’s got to make sure he’s getting other people involved. Um just the stuff that comes with being a point guard. Um you know he’s he’s always been kind of a a blend of both. Um, and we need him to be a little bit more true to that point guard position. I think he’s bought into that. So, we’ll see.
How much of right now it is like evaluating or or is that more halfway through summer league games or when what is what is your kind of philosophy on that?
Well, you definitely don’t evaluate after day one.
There’s not much you’re going to get out of that. But, uh, yeah, I mean, we’re evaluating, of course. I mean, we’re always evaluating. This is a big summer for them. This is their opportunity. They play a lot. Um, we got a good team. So they it’s really important to see them play well together, right? You know, like if if everybody’s just trying to go out and score their own, we’re not going to look that good. So, um you know, we we evaluate everything. We always do. We evaluate individual workouts in the summer. You know, we want to see progression.
What do you want to see from Jaylen Clark?
Well, he’s going to guard the best player every night. And it’s, you know, it might be it’ll be one for four. you know, like I might put him on a power forward, you know, might put him on center. I want to see it all. Uh, offensively, just keep, you know, tightening up the little things. I mean, he cuts well, you know, he does he does a lot of things that are intang intangible to our team, right? Which is why he played, continue to do that. Knock down open shots. Um, you know, I mean, we can see what he can do off the dribble. He’s he’s really good playing off the catch and driving the basketball. So just continue to do that and tighten everything up. We don’t necessarily want to run to pick and rolls that much, but if it comes, it comes.
Last year, Seah Hines kind of talked about how, you know, the summer league team is an extension of the main roster, and you guys ran kind of similar actions and stuff last year. Is it safe to assume that’s kind of how you’re going to be treating summer league as the coach?
Yeah, definitely. I mean, we we’ll run some different like half court sets, but as far as like what we flow and do. Yeah. I mean, doesn’t make sense to run a totally different offense than what we run, you know? So, it’s really important for these guys get those reps of what we do. Um, and then we’ll we’ll we’ll tinker with some things just based on our personnel out here and um definitely try to get guys in the right spots and run good things for them that they can, you know, be successful.
I mean, you’ve been a part of quite a few summer leagues over the years. just how how different is this team? I mean, there’s probably two or three guys that might be able to start I mean, on different teams in the league. Is is this team’s talent level just a little bit different than years past?
Yeah, it’s Yeah, it’s a little better. I mean, there’s some really talented teams out there. There’s definitely one of the better ones that we’ve had here and I was in New Orleans for eight years. It was better than most of those. So, yeah, I’m fortunate to be coaching this team and they compete. That’s the most important thing. So, I’m really it’s all about like how hard you compete. Um, you know, locking in defensively and then the offense will come. It’ll come really, it’ll come and go. But, um, if we can defend, then you can get out in transition. But, yeah, we got a good group.

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