TUALATIN — Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups’ selection of assistant coach Steve Hetzel to head the summer league team involved a complicated process.
“To be honest, I asked Chauncey if I could coach it and he said, ‘Yes,’” Hetzel said following the team’s first practice on Saturday.
OK, maybe it wasn’t so complicated. Sounds like Hetzel simply arrived at Billups’ office first?
“I beat everybody in,” Hetzel joked. “I was in at 5:30 a.m.”
Hetzel, with his eight years of experience as an NBA assistant coach, is more than qualified to lead the team during the summer session, which runs Thursday through July 17. But he said coaching the team will be a collective effort, with him simply sitting in the head chair.
“Everyone is super involved,” Hetzel said. “This is an opportunity for all of us to take that next seat up.”
Leading such an interesting roster is not a bad place to be for Hetzel.
The Blazers will trot out their two draft picks, Shaedon Sharpe and Jabari Walker, along with four players who saw extensive action late last season when the Blazers went into full-on tank mode. That group consists of Keon Johnson, Brandon Williams, Trendon Watford and Greg Brown III.
Their experience level won’t be typical for a summer league team, usually filled with rookies and young players who didn’t see a lot of meaningful minutes during the regular season.
“We have a good group of core players who are going to be playing with us,” Hetzel said. “So, they have a lot of internal knowledge and just hit the floor running. What we say and what we installed, they already know, so the execution level is high.”
Such experience should support the team’s goal of developing young talent while winning games.
“That’s a really important thing to us,” Hetzel said. “Not to just go out there and try to have an individual goal. We want to learn how to win games and execute both offensively and defensively. We want to see growth within the team, especially with the guys that you guys got to see in a lot of game minutes from at the end of our season last year.”
Walker, who said he had to adjust to the speed, spacing and defensive schemes during his first practice, noted how well the experienced players were on top of things.
“The sets we went through, they knew it right away,” Walker said. “Where to be ready to attack. You could just tell. Their physicality was up to par.”
That level of experience, Hetzel said, should rub off on the younger players.
“Anytime that you have an understanding of what the expectation is, how to execute, It helps a tremendous amount.” Hetzel said. “It helps everybody that hasn’t played. The rookies function much better.”
All eyes should be on Sharpe, taken with the seventh pick by the Blazers during last month’s NBA draft.
He is about as big of a mystery as a rookie could be given that he sat out his freshman season at Kentucky while redshirting with the intention of playing next season for the Wildcats. When his name shot up draft charts, he elected to enter the draft.
Summer league action will be the first time Sharpe has played live, 5-on-5 basketball in about a year. He said he can’t wait to get started.
Maybe dunking on someone again would be nice?
“Oh yeah, and at least competing,” the 6-foot-6 Sharpe said. “For real.”
Blazers rookie Jabari Walker following summer league practice. July 2, 2022
Because the 5-on-5 drills he participated in during practices at Kentucky were controlled and situational, Saturday’s more intense practice marked the first time Sharpe had been in such a setting for a year, as well. He said he was excited to see such action again and felt like he was only a tad rusty.
“Once I started going, it was pretty cool,” he said.
At times, rookies can get caught up in trying too hard to prove themselves during summer league. Could Sharpe?
“I’m not really worried about that,” he said. “I feel like some people hype some things up. But my whole job is to go play basketball and win.”
Walker said Sharpe impressed him during practice.
“He’s going to be a problem,” Walker said, noting Sharpe’s impressive step-back three move. “You don’t see that too often. He’s ready.”
Hetzel said he will be mindful of Sharpe’s minutes.
“I think the idea is to play him and manage him as the game goes,” Hetzel said.
He added that Sharpe is in great shape and ready to go.
As for position, Hetzel said Sharpe is a wing who will play shooting guard and small forward.
Hetzel said he hadn’t yet decided on a starting lineup. A guesstimate would be Williams at point guard, Johnson and Sharpe at the wings, Brown at power forward and Watford at center.
A power forward likely to see a ton of action is Walker, out of Colorado, who came out of practice feeling like he had a lot to learn, especially on defense.
“I think it was a learning process for me,” he said. “I needed this day to get ready and take steps forward.”
Blazers 2022 summer league roster.
— Aaron Fentress | afentress@Oregonian.com | @AaronJFentress (Twitter), @AaronJFentress (Instagram), @AaronFentress (Facebook).
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