Hagans’ draft prep: ‘Offensively, slow down. Defensively, keep your motor up’
Former Kentucky guard Ashton Hagans lived in Las Vegas the last four months. Instead of blackjack and roulette, he spent his time preparing for Wednesday’s NBA Draft.
Hagans worked out at Impact, a training center located 10 minutes south of the Las Vegas Strip on Dean Martin Drive. This will be the 24th draft for his trainer, Joe Abunassar (“Ah-bun-ah-SAR”), who has worked with such players as Kevin Garnett, current Clippers coach Tyronn Lue and ex-Cats John Wall, Karl-Anthony Towns and Tayshaun Prince. Wall and Towns are two of the three overall No. 1 picks that he helped train.
“All the way down to guys who weren’t drafted,” Abunassar said of his past clients. Those players include Fred VanVleet, who’s expected to soon sign a max contract as a free agent, and Jeremy Lin, whose starburst with the New York Knicks in the 2011-12 season inspired the term “Linsanity.”
“Ashton did an amazing job,” Abunassar said of the workouts from July to October. “Obviously, people who watch him play know how hard he plays. He works equally as hard.”
The trainer described his work with Hagans as something of a two-way basketball street.
“Offensively, slow down,” he said. “Defensively, keep your motor up.”
The training sessions concentrated on an offensive upgrade. The primary goals were to improve Hagans’ shooting and reduce his turnovers.
In his last 10 games of the 2019-20 season, Hagans made only four of 23 three-point shots (17.4 percent).
Abunassar cited the average of 2.3 shots as a factor.
“Getting only two shots a game, it’s tough,” the trainer said. “You’re either shooting 100 (percent), 50 or zero.”
When asked if a limited number of shots can play on a player’s mind, Abunassar said, “It does, and you never get in a rhythm.”
Hagans’ shooting percentages overall and from three-point range decreased from his freshman to sophomore seasons.
“To me, Ashton Hagans is a very solid shooter who will continue to get better,” the trainer said. “He’s not JJ Redick, but he’s on his way there. And he shot the ball very, very well in our workouts.”
As for the turnovers, Hagans committed five or six in seven of his final 18 games.
“I think with Ashton, it’s just being overly aggressive,” Abunassar said. “One of the things we really work on here is slowing down. … He’s so intense. I think from an offensive perspective, maybe over-penetrate a little bit. Once we slowed him down and got him to just take his time, it made a huge difference.”
The goal of slowing down was part of Hagans’ mental training at Impact, Abunassar said. The trainer added that he did not talk to Hagans about why the former UK player sat out the season’s final game at Florida. When asked at the time about Hagans’ absence, UK Coach John Calipari alluded to the pressure to perform a player can feel.
Of the Las Vegas sessions, Abunassar said, “slowing down not only his on-court play. His brain is spinning. ‘I got to do this! … I got to do that!’ Let’s take it one play, one day at a time.”
Nutrition played a part in Hagans’ training. His diet at Impact included supplements.
“It’s putting you at your peak performance mentally and physically when you’re eating well,” Abunassar said. “It’s not only a physical thing. It’s a mental thing, too.”
Abunassar likened Hagans as a prospective NBA player to Avery Bradley and Tony Allen, two backcourt defenders who played (Allen) or are playing (Bradley) NBA careers of more than 10 seasons.
“Very good defender who’s offensive game got better and better as he matured in the league,” Abunassar said of Bradley. “Avery is a guy Ashton can play a lot like.”
Mock drafts
Many mock drafts have Hagans being taken either late in the second round or not at all. Of the seven former UK players in this year’s draft, only Tyrese Maxey is projected as a first-round pick. In Calipari’s time as coach, Kentucky has had at least two players taken in the first round in every draft (counting Enes Kanter in 2011).
The other five ex-Cats are Immanuel Quickley, Nick Richards, EJ Montgomery, Kahlil Whitney and Nate Sestina. Abunassar also worked with Sestina at Impact.
Of mock drafts, Abunassar said, “You can’t make much of them. Not everyone has insight. … I’ve been through 24 drafts. We really assess (one thing): are they NBA players. Ashton Hagans is an NBA player.”
Bilas on Maxey
Of Maxey, ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas said, “He’ll be taken in the lottery. Could be as high as 10 or 11. Could be more in the 14-15 range. But because of his quickness, his ability to attack in transition and he’s a good ball handler and a good shooter. … He shoots the ball a little flat. And I think it’s improved. I saw him on TV … and he’s clearly worked on his mechanics.”
A moment later, Bilas added, “And I think, frankly, he benefits from the fact that there have been several Kentucky guards over the past few years that have fared almost better as pros than they did as college players, and that weighs in his favor. It will certainly make people think.”
UK has had at least one lottery pick in each NBA Draft from 2010 through 2019. The most was four in 2015 (1. Towns, 6. Willie Cauley-Stein, 12. Trey Lyles and 13. Devin Booker).
Second round for Whitney?
ESPN draft analyst Mike Schmidt sees NBA possibilities for Kahlil Whitney.
“Physically he’s exactly what teams want on the wing,” Schmidt said on a teleconference Tuesday. “Just kind of with the very limited sample size at Kentucky and then given the circumstances of the pandemic, he’s been kind of a difficult guy, I think, for teams to evaluate just because they haven’t been able to see much of him.
“I think he’s an interesting name when you talk about a guy in the 50s … (teams) want guys who are kind of a swing, who could potentially be a contributor down the road, and I think he fits that mold.”
Wednesday
NBA Draft
When: 8 p.m.
TV: ESPN, ESPNU, NBA
Radio: WLXG 1300
