ATHENS — The Hawks took a step away from the familiar Tuesday when they opened their training camp on the campus of the University of Georgia instead of their practice facility in Brookhaven. For the first time since 2017, the Hawks made the approximately 70-minute trek to Georgia’s campus for their first three days of training camp.
“We’re in your house now,” Hawks guard Trae Young said to franchise legend Dominique Wilkins after the team’s practice.
Wilkins, of course, played at Georgia for three seasons before the Jazz drafted him with the third overall pick in 1982 before trading his rights to the Hawks that September. His son, Jacob, already has committed to the school as a part of the class of 2025 and already has plans to wear the No. 21 jersey.
For now, though, the Hawks called the court at the Coliseum Training Facility home for the next three days.
“First, just, thank you to everybody, the university and the athletic department, coach (Mike) White in particular, for allowing us to do this,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “And they have a wonderful facility. We have space and courts, and sometimes it’s just good to be somewhere else. There’s no magic other than the fact that you get a chance to be together and have kind of a change of scenery, so to speak.”
Day one ended far from perfectly as the Hawks continued their adjustments to playing with a roster that saw at least seven new faces.
They turned the ball over a lot, but Snyder liked the way that the team competed on defense.
“It was good to see,” Snyder said. “But, I think, some of the things that are really important for us to do when you don’t do them as consistently as you want – one as a coach, you kind of understand that. It’s not to say I accept it or talk about it. But I think, practice like games, is the next step and will have an opportunity to show you. (I) say, competition shows you who you are, particularly when you’re fatigued, you’re excited, there’s a lot of emotion and energy and things like.”
The Hawks will look to improve their defense in the coming season after finishing toward the bottom of the league in many defensive stats. They aimed to add more defensive-minded players, like Dyson Daniels, to the roster.
But they understand that the defensive responsibilities of the team do not fall solely on one person.
“I mean, says a lot,” Young said. “I mean, I haven’t scrimmaged as much in training-camp practice, at all. And I think it’s important that we do. The way we want to play, as fast as we want to play, we got to get a lot of conditioning in, and playing up and down is going to get you there. And (Snyder) believes that. And just doing it the way that we want to do it is important, too. So, it was good. The way we practiced today is a good start.”
The scrimmaging, of course, not only will help them improve their conditioning but also improve their communication on the defensive end. The Hawks tended to communicate inconsistently last season, leading to missed rotations, close-outs or overhelping.
But they looked to address that right away during Tuesday’s scrimmage.
“We talked about it inside,” Hawks wing Bogdan Bogdanovic said. “And we are trying to play more, scrimmage more, to play, to compete more, to talk where and which positions and spots on the floor we would like to be, and especially defensively and rotations. And we have a pretty new team – a young and high-energy team. So, the time is in front of us. Time to work.”
Rookie forward Zaccharie Risacher felt that energy going through his very first NBA training-camp practice and could feel that the team could be laying the groundwork for something special.
“It was great,” Risacher said. “It felt like the beginning of something special. I can tell. There was a lot of intensity, a lot of energy. So, that’s what I like to do. That’s what I love to do. And, yeah, I really feel like we locked in together and being away a little bit from the facility is kind of nice because we can just be a group for three days, the talking about nothing but basketball, you know. So it’s pretty cool.”
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