Tim Hardaway, Jr. pushes through roadblocks
ATLANTA -- Tim Hardaway Jr. wouldn’t give the nets a rest in a shooting drill in the Atlanta Hawks practice gym. It was positively Stephen Curry-like. Hardaway hit 28 consecutive three-pointers from the right wing. At one point, he had a string of 17 threes without a miss from the left wing.
Hardaway made 73 of 80 three-point attempts in the post-practice drill Thursday.
“A great day,” Hardaway said, smiling. He was being defended by air, but it was still a nifty display of skill.
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Hardaway was coming off another good day when he scored 12 points against the Golden State Warriors last week, just his third double-digit game of the season.
Mostly, though, it has been a fitful season for the 2013 first-round pick from Michigan and son of former NBA All-Star Tim Hardaway.
The 6-6 Atlanta Hawks guard suffered a broken right wrist in the 2015 NBA Summer League, and the injury nagged him into the fall. He didn’t regroup fast enough for Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer, and on opening night, playing against the Detroit Pistons, with his father on the Pistons bench as an assistant coach, Tim Jr. was inactive.
“It was heartbreaking,” he said.
Hardaway did not play or was inactive in the Hawks’ first 15 games. He played limited minutes in four games in late November and was inactive for 15 of the next 16 games.
He was a member of the NBA All-Rookie Team in 2013-14 when he played 81 games with the New York Knicks. But Hardaway’s career went sprawling into the D-League twice this season.
“It was a learning experience,” Hardaway said. “All caps on ‘learning experience.' ”
The Hawks wanted to see more out of him on the defensive end, and Hardaway conceded his injury took him out of game shape for that end of the floor. The whole marriage looked like a bust, with the Hawks taking flak for surrendering a 2015 first-round pick for a player they couldn’t get on the court.
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“You have to sprint the floor, you have to come off screens when you are playing defense, and you have to trail screens. You have to get over pick-and-rolls, and you have to talk,” Hardaway said. “It takes a lot of energy, and the injury played a big part.”
Hardaway did not make things messy. He said he fumed for several hours after Budenholzer informed him of the first trip to the D-League on Dec. 3. But when he was told there was a plane ticket for him the next day, he said, “What time? I’ll be on it. Let’s go.”
“My father told me ‘They know what they’re doing here, they are not going to bring you here for no reason,' ” Tim. Jr. said.
Hardaway would be just another guy trying to make his way in the NBA if it wasn’t for the last name and his star status at Michigan. There are rubberneckers checking out the box scores, perhaps wondering if he is going to go in a ditch for good. Hardaway has stayed spirited on the bench, not crushed.
“We’re happy with the way Tim has responded. He had an injury that was a little bit understated,” Budenholzer said. “The ultimate goal in our league is to be a two-way player. I think he has the athleticism where he can be a good two-way guy. He’s on his way.”
