THE ATHLETIC DATE: 03/01/2021

Hawks rookie and the challenges of his NBA adjustment

By: Chris Kirschner https://theathletic.com/2402012/2021/03/01/hawks-rookie-onyeka-okongwu-and-the-challenges-of- his-nba-adjustment/

The tears fell almost instantaneously for Onyeka Okongwu right after NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced Okongwu had been selected sixth overall in the 2020 NBA Draft by the . The flashbacks of the hours spent in the gym in high school, middle school and elementary school flooded his mind. He thought about how he would wake up at 6 a.m. on game days when he was a child and how he’d rush into his mom, Kate’s, room to wake her up.

He also thought about how his older brother, Nnamdi, would have been in the room with him draft night and how he would have been the first to jump on his younger brother to give him the biggest hug imaginable. Okongwu wore a black bracelet that night with the words “NNAMDI OKONGWU #21, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU” to keep his brother close to him.

Nnamdi died in 2014 after suffering from a traumatic brain injury caused by a skateboarding accident. He was 17 years old. Onyeka was just 13.

“We were kind of opposites personality-wise,” Okongwu said. “He was more outgoing. I’m more of an antisocial, quiet person. He was a social butterfly. He and I were always connected together though because opposites attract. We were always able to get along, and he was the sweetest person you’d ever meet in your life.

“I really love sharing my brother’s story as often as possible. I always want to keep his name alive. Whenever people ask me about him, I will never hesitate to tell his story and tell everyone who he was. I just like hearing his name. No matter where I’m at, I always like talking about him.”

The Okongwu brothers would always talk about how they wanted to win a state title at , play for USC and then get drafted into the NBA.

Onyeka didn’t seriously start thinking the NBA could be a possibility for himself until he was at Chino Hills. He eventually became a five-star recruit at the powerhouse, but he was always overshadowed playing alongside both Lonzo and LaMelo Ball, the latter being one of his closest friends. Chino Hills finished undefeated in Okongwu’s freshman season, winning the California state title and the de facto national championship. Chino Hills would win two more state titles while Okongwu was there. He then went on to play for the school he and his brother imagined themselves playing for before being a lottery pick.

Nnamdi never got to achieve those dreams, but his younger brother is still living them out for him.

“He would have been proud of me,” Okongwu said. “I know it. He always knew I was gifted and talented, and if he could have seen and heard my name get called on draft night, he just would have been a proud big brother.”

No one has ever questioned Okongwu’s gifts or talents, but his rookie season with the Hawks has started slowly, and the possibility of playing for Atlanta started the same way. Okongwu said the Hawks started talking to him and agent Jordan Gertler at “the last minute.” Okongwu estimates it was about a month before the draft when the Hawks first reached out, which was much later than other teams who expressed interest in him, like Charlotte, Cleveland and Washington.

One of the reasons the Hawks were so late was because general manager had never seen a game of Okongwu’s in person, even though the team’s scouts saw plenty. Schlenk went to USC once during Okongwu’s freshman season, and Okongwu sat out that game. Schlenk then made plans to see him in the Pac-12 tournament, but it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team had plans to work him out, but he was unable to do so because he had a stress fracture in his sesamoid bone, which is underneath the big toe.

Okongwu said he fractured his sesamoid bone during a workout in September after landing on his foot awkwardly. When he originally had his foot checked out, he was diagnosed with inflammation. He took medicine for two weeks to deal with the pain and felt fine, then he reinjured his foot in the same spot. That was when the MRI revealed the small fracture.

The injury frustrated Okongwu because it happened before prospects were allowed to travel for team workouts, so he never got a chance to showcase himself on the court in front of team personnel who had already expressed interest in him. It was reported on the morning of the draft that Okongwu had a foot injury that could sideline him through training camp and some of the regular season — the fact it was revealed then despite him dealing with the injury for two months was a clear leak to cause second- guessing. He ultimately missed the first 10 games of the season.

Okongwu has struggled to catch up with the rest of the Hawks because he didn’t have a Summer League, training camp or preseason, and because this season is so weird and condensed, practice time is hard to come by. The team doesn’t have morning shootarounds on game days like it normally would because of the COVID-19 testing it has to do and the restrictions the league has in place.

That’s made being a rookie who entered the league injured even more challenging than it normally would be.

“It’s been very difficult to get up to speed because it’s tough to get into the gym as much as you can because of COVID,” Okongwu said. “It was tough for me to get in the best shape — and I’m still not in the best shape. I’m still getting better every single day. I feel like if I was able to get in the gym more, I’d be more up to speed than where I’m at right now.

“I’m at a good pace right now, in terms of game shape. I do feel like I can and will get way better. I definitely feel like I can get better with more workouts, more repetitions just to get in game shape like I know I can.”

Okongwu said he arrived in Atlanta out of basketball shape, needing to lose weight mainly because of his foot injury but also because he hadn’t played a game since February 2020. He worked out all spring and summer doing individual workouts, but those don’t have the same effect as playing an actual game. He wasn’t cleared to practice until late December because of his foot injury.

When Okongwu did see the floor for the first few times for the Hawks, it was clear he was unsure of himself and where he should be on both ends of the floor. It’s still a learning process for him now. Two weeks ago, Okongwu said he pulled aside before the Knicks game and asked him if he ever had a problem overthinking. Gallinari told him that, yes, most players go through this stage early in their careers where you just don’t feel sure of yourself. John Collins said he didn’t feel comfortable until after the All-Star break in his rookie season. said it took a few months for him to feel OK. The message to Okongwu was to just relax and trust in the abilities that got you to this .

“I do feel comfortable, but I will tell you this, each of them told me they all went through it,” Okongwu said. “Sometimes, I will just be in my own head for no reason whatsoever. When I’m overthinking and in my head, I don’t play my best. I’m just thinking too much when I’m on the court because I haven’t played in so long. Now that I’m getting used to playing with the guys and building that chemistry, I feel fine now. I think it is just a rookie thing for me with overthinking stuff. Now that I’m comfortable learning new things every step of the way, I feel fine.”

Solomon Hill recently told Okongwu how he needed to hang his hat on rebounding and knowing his defensive positioning to get out on the floor more than he has so far. That’s what Okongwu has done for his entire basketball career. His former coach Ron Austin told Okongwu when he was 5 years old that bad offensive games happen, but you should never have a bad day on defense. “Even if players aren’t scoring a lot or touching the ball a lot, there’s no excuse to not give it your all on defense because it’s a pride, effort, energy and mental thing out there,” Okongwu would recall Austin saying.

Okongwu entered the league with a strong defensive reputation, averaging 2.7 blocks and 1.2 steals per game at USC. He said he was “shocked and surprised” he didn’t receive any defensive accolades with the Trojans. He wasn’t named to the Pac-12 All-Defense teams, when he likely should have been.

“He was able to quickly figure out how to guard ball screens at a high level — at a very high level, I should say,” USC coach Andy Enfield told The Athletic. “We also could switch. We did a lot of switching ball screens with him because he was so good at keeping guards in front of him. If they did get a half step or a step on him driving to the basket, he could stay on the side of them and their shot from behind or from the side or at least challenge their shots. He became an excellent ball-screen defender, whether we hedged with him, we hard-hedged, we soft-hedged or we switched.”

Okongwu hasn’t shown his full defensive potential and hasn’t yet proven to be a fully trusted rotational player, although there have been glimpses of him being able to guard out on the perimeter and move his feet well. Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce recently said, “we’re throwing him out there mainly because we need a body and it does give him an opportunity to get his feet wet.”

It was always going to be difficult for Okongwu to see consistent playing time this season because of the Hawks’ playoff goals and the team wanting to continue getting Collins minutes as a small-ball five. The rookies in the past two seasons had the luxury of going through a clear rebuild where they were going to be guaranteed minutes and the opportunity to play through their mistakes. Okongwu doesn’t have it that easy; he’s going to have to earn his minutes.

After the two-game series against the Celtics, Hill made a comparison of whom Okongwu should model his game after in the early part of his career.

“You look at what Robert Williams does with the Celtics. They don’t really run plays for him,” Hill said. “He goes out there and is a defensive presence. He’s a presence on the boards and makes you change shots. If O can kind of figure out a couple of things like that, that will put him on the floor to have offensive opportunities.

“We need someone like that to be an anchor in that second unit, especially with guys like Gallo, myself and Tony (Snell). If he can be that guy who comes in defensively, sets screens and rolls, he can definitely see the floor.” Okongwu’s slow start has already frustrated some fans who’ve seen and , two players the Hawks were linked to in the pre-draft process, be impactful for Sacramento and San Antonio, respectively. Okongwu is aware his path is going to be different than some of the other rookies in this class, and that’s OK. He said he walked into this situation knowing he was going to have to fight for minutes this season with a significant disadvantage from the beginning with his injury.

Okongwu/notable first-round picks Hawks passed on

PLAYER MPG PPG RPM EPM RAPM RAPTOR WS

Onyeka Okongwu 9.7 3.2 -3.7 -2.8 -0.28 -3.1 0.3

Obi Toppin 12.2 4.6 -1.08 -3 -1.39 -1.9 0.6

Deni Avdija 21.3 5.9 -2.19 -1.1 0.16 -1.6 0.5

Devin Vassell 17.3 5.5 -0.58 -0.9 0.1 1.4 0.9

Tyrese Haliburton 30.1 13.2 -0.31 0.8 0.01 1.3 2.2

On the morning of this interview, Okongwu said he texted LaMelo Ball to check in with him. Okongwu said Ball is having a ball in Charlotte and balling out in his rookie season. Okongwu is waiting for his time to do the same.

“I just want to go out there and ball,” he said. “I just want to go out there and give it my all. I just want people to know I work hard. I want people to know I give my all on the court. Everything else will come along. I just want to show my coaches and teammates that I work hard. I want us to win games, and I will do whatever it takes to help us win games.

“I just want to be able to max out my potential in all aspects of my game. We’ll just find out what player I become in the future.”

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