Story by KL ChouinardTwitter: @KLChouinard
Houston, Texas. Dec. 9, 2004. Mike Budenholzer still vividly remembers the end of his team's game that evening.
"I think I became frustrated with basketball in those 30 seconds. Whoever put this game together was not very fair to us," Budenholzer recalled. "I can almost go and show you on the court where he made the shots."
Budenholzer was then an assistant coach for the San Antonio. His Spurs held a 76-68 lead in the final minute of a game against the Houston Rockets until Tracy McGrady uncorked one of the most explosive scoring outbursts in NBA history.
McGrady began the comeback with a three-point shot over Malik Rose. Then he baited Tim Duncan into biting on a long-distance shot fake and turned it into a four-point play. Then he hit a three over Bruce Bowen. Finally, McGracy scooped up a loose ball, dribbled the length of the court and and hit a game-winning three over a scrambling Spurs defense with 1.7 seconds left.
The Rockets won, 81-80. Tracy McGrady scored an incredible 13 points in 33 seconds.
Budenholzer, though, isn't the only current member of the Hawks who knows that game well.
"I really fell in love with basketball when I saw Tracy McGrady go off on the Spurs," Hawks rookie forward Taurean Prince, who was 10 years old at the time, said recently. "I'm from San Antonio, so when I saw that, he became my favorite player."
Notwithstanding the fandom of McGrady, there was still plenty of love for the Spurs in the Prince family. San Antonio won four NBA titles during Prince's impressionable childhood years, and Prince was a fan of the Spurs even as his favorite player toiled for another team.
"You really can't have a favorite Spur because they play as a team so much. You just have to love them for who they are: the Spurs," Prince said.
Prince's mom, Tamiyko, was also a fan of those Spurs teams, a fact that became evident to Budenholzer when Prince officially signed his Hawks contract.
"When we signed Taurean and had dinner with his family, his mom was so excited," Budenholzer said, recalling Mrs. Prince's interactions with Rose, who currently serves as the Manager of Basketball Operations for the Hawks. "Malik was at the table, and the rest of us were like chopped liver compared to Malik. She remembered the championship in 1999 and all those great things. It was fun."
As Prince was growing up in San Antonio, he was literally doing just that: growing up: a high school growth spurt of nine inches took him through a gamut of basketball positions as he sprouted from a 5-foot-9 freshman wing to a 6-foot-6 senior center. And when he got to Baylor University, he switched to power forward. After a couple of seasons of limited minutes, an opportunity arose that put him in a prime position not only for college basketball but for the NBA too.
"I wasn’t playing on the wing for about four or five years straight, and then one of my former teammates got injured," Prince said. "So I moved to the wing and I just started taking it seriously from there."
Even if Prince had the stature to play power forward in college and spent part of his college career there, Budenholzer thinks that Prince has adapted well to playing on the wing.
"You see a lot of guys that were power forwards in college, and they have a lot of ground to cover to get to that small forward spot. I would just say that Taurean is significantly ahead of that (pace)," Budenholzer said. "He has got a comfort level. He has got ball-handling skills and shooting skills, and he sees the court."
Prince has already been using his length, savvy and 6-foot-11.5-inch wingspan to disrupt passing lanes out on the perimeter. He had five steals in the open scrimmage, three steals in a preseason game against Memphis, and three more against San Antonio on Saturday.
The acquisition of Prince is something of a rare opportunity for the Hawks. Because they have earned nine consecutive playoff berths, the Hawks have not had a draft pick in the lottery since 2007, when they picked Al Horford and Acie Law. They traded guard Jeff Teague to acquire Prince, the 12th pick in this summer's draft, and all indications are that Prince has the talent to justify his lottery selection. He has a rare combination of stature, talent, and ambition, as noted by Budenholzer.
"Big is always better, but you need to have guys who can play," Budenholzer said. "A small forward of his size that has small forward-size skills and a toughness – it's just something that you feel great about having in your program. He plays very hard. He's very physical. He's fearless. And I think he is skilled, so you start trying to get a little more skill into all that competitiveness and size and athleticism, and you feel like you have a guy that can be a good player."
To learn those skills, Prince is trying hard to soak up everything that he can from coaches and fellow players, including some of the veterans in the starting lineup.
"If I see a successful person on or off the basketball court, I ask questions," Prince said. "My locker is between Paul Millsap's and Kyle Korver's, so every chance I get, if I know they're not busy and we're engaged in conversation, I'm not afraid to ask them certain questions I may have that I'm curious about. With Kyle Korver, even when I'm on the opposite team at practice, he's always talking to me and letting me know the do's and don'ts. Dwight (Howard) is also somebody that I really look up to. Me and him have a good relationship."
One of the skills that Prince will need to succeed on the NBA level is the ability to make three-point shots. Even though he converted a high percentage of his three-point attempts in college, he is striving diligently to improve. He has worked with Hawks assistant coach Ben Sullivan on his outside shot as far back as his first pre-draft workout with the Hawks. They teamed up to improve his release. And Prince doesn't expect the added distance of the NBA three-point line to be a problem.
"Going into my senior year (at Baylor), I was already shooting NBA threes, I was trying to deepen my range because my junior year I shot 39 percent, so I knew (defenders) were going to be on me a little higher. I wanted to back it up to get a little more space. I took it upon myself to do that and get better because I knew what I was trying to get to."
If a recent shooting drill was any indication, that shot is going to be ready sooner rather than later. Several Hawks lined up to shoot threes after practice Wednesday. The number of players dwindled as players were eliminated for having too many misses. In the end, Prince and a teammate remained. Prince swished eight more threes, but his teammate made nine. As shown in that drill, the form and the touch are there. When combined with his defensive prowess, it makes for a really intriguing skill-set.
Of course, Prince may never score 13 points in 33 seconds. It may be that no NBA player ever duplicates that ridiculous feat. But Prince has a rare combination of talent and ambition. With that in mind, it's hard not to envision him making some game-winning threes over the course his career, just like Tracy McGrady did in a game against his head coach 12 years ago.