Atlanta Hawks shooting guard Kevin Huerter knows he has to take a major leap in his second year in the league to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump, which many NBA players have gone through. To do so, he must switch his mindset into becoming a more aggressive player, which will keep him more engaged and in line for heavy minutes as Lloyd Pierce's starter in the rotation:
“It’s something that I need to change moving forward,” Huerter told Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. “The mindset of being more aggressive and everything is not allowing myself to feel out of rhythm or out of the game. There were a bunch of games last season where if I didn’t start off hot or didn’t start off in a better flow of the game, it was hard for me to get going. Those were the games individually as a player where you just don’t want. That’s the next step for me. Let’s say Trae (Young) is hot and he has 16 in the first quarter, I still have to find a way to get myself going in the second quarter. The best players in the league and the guys I look at and try to emulate my game after are guys who are never out of a game and always find a way to get in rhythm. Now I have to find that for myself.”
Huerter has found this out very quickly as a young player, while others don't figure it out for another year or so and take even longer to develop that rhythm. The 20-year-old is aware of the type of player he prospects to be, acknowledging he's not Kyrie Irving with “100 different moves in his bag,” but rather a marksman who needs to be dangerous at all three levels to succeed:
“One of our trainers who was working out with him (Monday morning) said to me, ‘You know what? Kevin looks like a man now,’” said his trainer, Steve Dagostino. “He’s filling out. He doesn’t look like the 19-year-old kid when he was drafted. I think that’s going to help him be more confident when he’s getting to the rim. Especially in the NBA, getting to the foul line and being aggressive is a mindset. He has the ability and handles; it’s just a matter of not settling for threes all of the time. Teams are going to guard him where they’re chasing him off the 3-point line. He can’t settle for a mid-range jumper. He needs to get to the rim. He’s good enough to do it.”
Adding a threat from in close will make defenders think twice before closing out hard on Huerter, as well as crowding him between screens if he has a sneaky cut game to go to. Most great sharpshooters can hurt teams in ways beyond the long-range, and now that Huerter has figured it out, it'll be up to him to execute.
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