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Story by KL Chouinard Twitter: @KLChouinard

ATLANTA -- Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce got an early glimpse of Dewayne Dedmon just a handful of games into Dedmon's NBA career. 

Pierce was an assistant coach with the Philadelphia 76ers when the team signed Dedmon to a pair of 10-day contracts in January 2014. To that point, Dedmon's NBA career consisted of 6 total minutes in 4 games with the Golden State Warriors.

The 76ers, in the midst of a 19-63 season, gave Dedmon his first real extended minutes and a shot at proving what he could do.

"He was still learning," Pierce said. "He wasn't the shooter that he is now. He played with good effort, but he was still raw. He was more of a project back then, not so much because he wasn't good, but just no one really knew much about him. But you knew he was an NBA player."

Dedmon averaged 3.4 points and 4.5 rebounds in 13.6 minutes per game for the 76ers. More importantly, he upgraded their defense when he took the floor. The Orlando Magic saw the promise in his game and signed him for the remainder of the season. Dewayne Dedmon's NBA career was underway.

Now Pierce's advice to Dedmon is taking on an entirely different form.

Pierce isn't talking about basketball. Dewayne and his girlfriend Kayla are expecting their first child in a matter or days. Pierce and his wife Melissa recently had their first child in August.

"He's lucky that he has got a coach who just had a baby, because I understand and I know the timeline," Pierce quipped.

Dedmon is understandably excited as he counts down the days.

"We've got 13 days left man, so we'll see," Dedmon said on Nov. 3. "You know what I'm saying? I haven't seen him yet, but I can't wait. I'm looking forward to it."

Pierce said that he will be careful to be sure that Dedmon is present for the birth of his first child as the Hawks embark on a West Coast trip Sunday, even if such obstetric timelines are unpredictable.

"The one thing I know is that you're going to have your own experience. From August 1st to August 11th, we had a date night every night and we had a workout. It was the most fun, but also the most boring – I was afraid to go to the grocery store. Just expect the unexpected is the bottom line. Who knows?  And that's why we're going to be mindful about going out West. You don't know when it's going to happen and how it's going to happen, and how much time in between, so we've got to come up with a plan that is best for Dewayne and his family."

On the court, Dedmon has made a strong return from an ankle fracture that sidelined him for the preseason and the first few games of the regular season. He has averaged 7.8 points, 5.9 rebounds as the first center off the bench. And despite playing just 18.8 minutes per game, Dedmon currently ranks 9th in the NBA in blocks per game (1.8).

"I'm feeling good," Dedmon said. "I'm just trying to catch my rhythm again. Once I get my rhythm, all the pieces of the puzzle will be back together. It's a process. I haven't played in two months. I'm just trying to get back in the flow of things and get chemistry with the young guys and new players that we have."

One player with whom Dedmon has seemingly generated instant chemistry is Jeremy Lin. The two shared no court time in the buildup to the season; Dedmon hurt his ankle before Lin resumed practices following his rehabilitation from a knee injury. Despite the relative newness, Lin and Dedmon have thrived together. Some of the Hawks' best offensive units have been centered around the pick-and-roll duo. 

Lin said he and Dedmon both aspire to be players who are easy for other teammates to play with.

"Any time I get paired with a really, really intelligent big man, it makes my life so much easier," Lin said. "I give him a lot of credit for setting screens, angles on screens, getting below the defense, rolling to the right place, keeping his hands ready, shooting floaters, finishing at the rim, shooting threes and making plays."

After realizing the length of that list, Lin laughed. 

"Really, he's just making me look really good, man."

Pierce said that Dedmon has a propensity toward volume, and he's using it constructively.

"He's the loudest guy in the locker room – good and bad," Pierce said smiling. "He's just always talking, but he brings that to the court as well. His real contribution is on the defensive end: his energy and his communication. He's always in the right spot."

Baby Dedmon will be joining a household that already includes two dogs, Bella, a Great Dane, and Blue, a rottweiler. 

"I think they kind of sense it, but once the baby actually comes, then they'll really have to get acclimated to it,"  Dewayne said.

Dewayne also said that he and Kayla had no tolerance for a gender reveal event.

"Oh no," he said. "We knew as soon as we could find out. We knew it was a boy. We've got a 2.0 on the way."

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Expect The Unexpected: Coach Pierce Shares Advice With Dewayne Dedmon

Story by KL ChouinardTwitter: @KLChouinard

ATLANTA -- For 12 minutes of basketball, the debut of State Farm Arena wasn't a success by any metric for the Hawks. Then the Atlanta defense reset itself, and the Hawks began the process of laying a 26-point deficit to bed while turning their home building's rechristening into a smash hit. And despite some early hiccups, rookie Trae Young was the star of the night's final act.

Kent Bazemore played a wire-to-wire game, scoring a career-high 32 points and setting an example that his younger teammates eventually picked up on. Taurean Prince made five threes and scored 24 points. DeAndre' Bembry had 11 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, notching his first career double-double in the process.

On the other hand, it wasn't that trio's offensive numbers that changed the game; it was their defense. Led by rookie sensation Luka Doncic and his 12 first-quarter points, the Dallas Mavericks got their offense rolling early and posted a 42-point first quarter.

Head coach Lloyd Pierce then turned the game over to his best perimeter defenders. Bembry, Bazemore, and Prince each played over 10 minutes in the second quarter. By combining their length and agility on the perimeter of the defense, Pierce changed the flow of the game.

"We challenged our guys at one of the timeouts to just get three stops in a row," Pierce said. "I think we finished the second quarter with 12-of-15 stops. It was just personal pride on the defensive end."

According to Bembry, the Hawks tilted their defense toward the Mavericks' top offensive threats.

"We started locking in and keying on certain players to make other players take shots," Bembry said, "and those defensive plays led us to offense."

The Hawks held the Mavericks to 16 second-quarter points and clawed their way back into the game, but they didn't take their first lead of the night until the 5:13 mark of the fourth quarter, when Young drew a shooting foul on a three-point attempt and made all three free throws. 

Moments later, Young froze a defender with a spin move and drove in for a layup while getting knocked on his back. After sitting on hushed emotions for over three quarters, the fans inside the new building had something to scream for. 

"I'm super proud of Trae Young," Bazemore said. "The first three quarters were rough, but down the stretch, he got the crowd into it and he really helped us separate down the end."

Young scored 12 of his 17 points in the fourth quarter and made 8 of 9 free throws over the same time frame. When Dallas applied some physical full-court pressure in the final two minutes, Young carefully maintained possession of the ball and converted all but one of his free throws.

Bembry quipped afterward about his incredible rebounding performance that more than doubled his previous career-high. 

Despite the humor, he's not wrong. Without his defense, there weren't going to be as many missed shots – and those misses led to rebounds and easier offensive chances.

"It feels amazing to come out here and get those type of minutes in this type of arena," Bembry said.

Then DeAndre' hit on the theme of the night, summing up an incredible comeback spurred by a feisty and attentive defense of the final three quarters.

"First game in State Farm Arena was pretty dope."

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Hawks Resurge: Nab Home Opener Win Over Mavs

ATLANTA -- Trae Young returns to Oklahoma this weekend when the Hawks travel to Tulsa for a preseason game against the Oklahoma City Thunder Sunday. When he gets there, the rookie point guard will find dozens of friends and family members ready to welcome him home. And he'll return to a place that was an important incubator of his budding pro basketball career.

Trae Young's basketball journey began in Portugal as a 4-year-old.

His father, Rayford, played collegiately at Texas Tech and once scored 41 points in a win over Kansas. After college and a couple of attempts at trying to catch on with an NBA team, Rayford headed overseas to play in Europe, most notably with FC Porto. As an American playing in Portugal, Rayford was the hired gun of the team, the star. And it afforded him certain privileges, including having his son in the gym with him, happily bouncing a basketball. 

"He was at every practice. He was actually in the way a lot during practices," Rayford said with a laugh.

Given that he was as young as he was, Trae's memory is fuzzier on the subject. But he has relived those times through other means.

"I have a lot of videos that I've seen: going to beaches, going to games and his shootarounds," Trae said.  "I don't remember too much since I was 4 or 5 years old."

Just before Trae Young was about to turn 6 years old and start kindergarten, the Youngs moved back to Norman, Okla. to be closer to the family of Trae's mother, Candice. In the next few years, Trae was going to find himself in an ideal basketball environment, one into which he could plunge wholeheartedly.

Less than a year after the Young family relocated back to Norman, the New Orleans Hornets made a temporary move to nearby Oklahoma City in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For a kid obsessed with basketball, it was a huge development: having an NBA team with a phenom rookie point guard dropped in your backyard.  "That was a big deal," Trae said. "I love Chris Paul's game. And just having an NBA team in our city was big for me, just so I could go to NBA games. We didn't have anything at that time, so being able to go to those games was really fun."

Fun, yes, but in a less obvious way, it was a learning experience too.

When Trae Young arrived in Atlanta, head coach Lloyd Pierce gave him a book as a gift: "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.

"There's so much time that we spend throughout an NBA season where you're on the road, or your'e on the bus, or you're in your hotel room," Pierce said. "The whole goal was to, as young men, find ways to occupy your time. How do you get better? It's not just by being in the gym all the time. How do you get better as a person? How do you get educated about other things?"

In the book, Gladwell discussed the backstories of some of the world's most famous prodigies, looking for the factors that led to their success. Of course, innate talent was a huge factor. But Gladwell argued that two other factors figured even more prominently.

The first was an inordinate amount of practice.

"The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise," Gladwell wrote. "In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours."

But Gladwell also suggested that reaching the highest pinnacles of success required more than just crossing the threshold of the 10,000-hour rule. Opportunity was a key ingredient as well. 

Take, for instance, Microsoft founder and personal computer pioneer Bill Gates. Gates was a sharp kid, a math whiz. But Gladwell reasoned that he was afforded a number of opportunities that fostered his love of computer programming, starting with his school acquiring a state-of-the-art computer system in 1968 when he was in eighth grade (in an era when virtually no other schools had such elaborate setups). Over his high school years, Gates kept finding ways to gain precious computer programming time at the University of Washington even when such time was extremely rare. 

Did Gates have immense talent and the drive to pursue his passion hour after hour, day after day for many years? Absolutely, he did. On the other hand, he wouldn't have had the means to pursue that goal without a few instances of good fortune.

"Lucky breaks don't seem like the exception with software billionaires and rock bands and start athletes," Gladwell argued. "They seem like the rule."

Trae continued to hone his skills as a grade-schooler. Wherever he went, he had a basketball with him. The first thing he mastered was a jump shot. 

"I started thinking, 'Oh my gosh. Is this real?' And it wasn't anything forced," Rayford said. "He wasn't forcing it or launching it. It was just a regular shooting motion."

While Trae grew obsessed with the game, the game kept coming back to him. He had the good fortune of having a father who was also his coach and a former pro. Rayford knew how to guide Trae in acquiring basketball skills, whether it involved work on the court or watching games together and learning the tactics that made other players successful. 

Trae also got to be a ball boy for the University of Oklahoma, another illuminating basketball experience. And when the Hornets moved back home to New Orleans in 2007, they were quickly replaced by another NBA team: the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder's 2008 arrival left an indelible impression on Trae.

"For the last ten years, me and my family have had tickets. While I was growing up, I went to as many Thunder games as I could."

Suddenly, Trae was watching NBA games from close up and a home team that featured three future MVPs: Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Kevin Durant. He was also able to see his favorite player, Steve Nash, when Phoenix visited Oklahoma City for road games. 

Trae's infatuation with basketball kicked into overdrive. Suddenly, being a great shooter wasn't enough. He wanted to be a great ballhandler and a great passer, too. Rayford said that Trae would go into the garage and work on various drills designed to improve his speed. He would jump rope to the point of exhaustion. He also came up with a clever trick to develop his ballhandling.

"I would go in the garage in the dark, turn off all the lights and just dribble in the dark in the garage with my ball," Trae said.

As Harden, Westbrook and Durant grew the Thunder into a championship contender, Trae's love of the game grew along with it. He saw the best version of basketball laid out before his eyes and he figured out how to play that way, too.

Pierce said that Trae's immersion into the game helped take him to where he is now. It was a work of devotion fueled by talent, hard work and opportunity.

"There are a lot of things that you can say are coincidence and you can say are by chance, or you can say, 'No, it was designed to be that way,' " Pierce said. "Whether it was Bill Gates and going down to UW and having access to a computer lab right when that was a big deal, or Trae, who has been surrounded by basketball in a variety of ways in an area that really didn't have have professional basketball but it was brought to him right in the midst of his development as a player. There's a reason why the little guy loves basketball and became exceptional and special."

Pierce, who played with Nash at Santa Clara, saw an analogous situation to Trae's in his former teammate. Nash, born the son of a pro soccer player in South Africa, later moved to hockey-loving Canada with his family when he was a child. 

"The beauty of what Nash did is that he was able to parlay soccer and hockey into basketball with footwork and hand-eye coordination," Pierce said. "One of the most unbelievable passers and facilitators that we've ever seen has a hand-eye coordination that he acquired from two other sports. That's not by chance."

Pierce cited an example of a pass that Young made in the first preseason game, where Young assisted on an interior pass in traffic by bouncing it off the floor.

"The passes he makes, the nuances he makes in the game — that doesn't just accidentally happen. Those are things that people have taught you and you've seen," Pierce said.

Perhaps the best news of all for Hawks fans is that Young, who had a total of 8 assists in the preseason opener, plays a generous, unselfish brand of basketball that emphasizes making decisions that yield the best possible shots. He attributes his style of play to what he has witnessed firsthand.

"It just comes from being around the game of basketball and being around guys like Chris Paul and guys like LeBron and KD and Russ," Trae said. "Just their unselfishness and knowing that when you have team success, individual success will follow along with it. My first and foremost goal is my team and making sure that my team is OK and that we're winning."

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Trae Young Poised For Return To Oklahoma

atljwilson

Story by KL ChouinardTwitter: @KLChouinard

Cooper Henderson is 8 years old, and he is infatuated with basketball. 

Sometimes being obsessed with basketball means Cooper stands in front of the TV and calls out NBA players' names while doing his own personal play-by-play broadcast for the game.  Sometimes it means he plays his younger brother, Brody, in NBA2K18. Cooper plays with the Golden State Warriors and Brody uses the Hawks to ensure that he has Kent Bazemore on his team.

But video games are for the rainy days. On sunny days, being hooked on basketball means games of one-on-one against Brody in the backyard -- tough, competitive, older brother/younger brother contests played on a concrete court walled off with old electric pole timbers. Cooper's go-to move is a jump shot. 

"They play 'make it, take it', and they are serious," Cooper's mother, Amy, said. "They go hard."

The boys' uncle taught them how to play the game, but for the past couple of years Cooper has added to his skill set while participating in Jr. Hawks Camps. At the end of a camp last summer, Cooper's team won a tournament consisting of the campers from age 7 to 9.

"He absolutely loved it," Amy said. "He liked the competition teams. He loved the coaches. All the staff members were just very friendly, and it was a close family."

This month, Cooper and Brody attended a Jr. Hawks Camp on the practice court in Philips Arena on the Sunday morning before the Hawks/Suns game. After a couple of hours of well-organized, upbeat skill development, the campers, ranging in age from seven to 16, were broken up into 12 groups consisting of three or four campers each. The first group to make 10 free-throw length jump shots would win the shooting contest and get chance to dig into the prize box. Cooper was raring to go because the kid just loves to compete. 

Cooper and two teammates lined up to get ready. After missing his first attempt, he quickly rebounded the ball for a teammate and recalibrated his shot. His team didn't end up winning, but Cooper swished five of his team's eight shots. As impressive as the feat was for an 8-year-old shooting on 10-foot rims, it was even more so astounding because Cooper was born without a left hand.

"Truth be told, he's one of the best shooters and best players out there," Vice President of Basketball Development Jon Babul said. "We celebrate inclusion, and we celebrate triumph among challenges, and he's a walking example of that."

Not every camper has to be as dedicated to the game as Cooper, whose first word as a baby was 'ball'. Members of the camp staff emphasize enjoyment of the game and a positive coaching experience geared around fun for kids of multiple ages and skill levels.  

"We're exposing youth to healthy habits and exercise," Babul said. "There are so many benefits to the game of basketball outside of just shooting, passing, dribbling and defense. What we emphasize is the life skills: teamwork, communication, how to be coached and how to be a good teammate."

As part of the camp, Cooper and Brody got tickets to the Hawks game against the Suns. With mom Amy, they watched as the Hawks pulled off a late-game comeback on a dramatic three-point shot by Taurean Prince. The Hawks won because, just like Cooper, Prince is a pretty good jump shooter. 

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8-Year-Old Defying Odds To Live His Basketball Dream

Who is the fastest player on the Hawks? It's a simple question, but the answer may depend on the type of speed being measured. 

When DeAndre' Bembry was asked, he put himself in the mix with point guards Isaiah Taylor and Dennis Schröder.

"That’s actually a question we always think about between us," Bembry said. "At first, it was just me and Dennis. But now with Isaiah, that’s definitely something we’re going to have to figure out this summer."

Bembry submitted his name with one key qualification – no dribbling, just a sprint – before turning the question over to a member of the team's player development staff. He suggested that Bembry, Taylor and Kent Bazemore were the fastest sprinters before adding that Schröder would likely win a down-and-back race consisting of two lengths of a basketball court because of his fluidity in stopping and starting. 

When Schröder was posed the question, he narrowed his list down to him and Taylor.

"It's pretty close. I think both of us are fast, so I'd take it as that," he said with a smile. "Every time I'm on the bench I see how fast he is."

Like Schröder, head coach Mike Budenholzer focused on his point guards. 

"In the games, it’s Isaiah, end-to-end. Dennis uses his speed a little differently than Isaiah. Who would win a footrace? I don’t know. They’re both incredibly fast."

Budenholzer also differentiated speed by the type of offensive play.

"I think Isaiah has a comfort level in the open court and in transition attacking through smaller cracks and more often. I’d actually like for Dennis to do it a little bit more. But Dennis in the halfcourt, the way he operates there, I think there’s a lot of speed."

Perhaps fittingly, Taylor responded with the fastest answer.

"You want to be honest?," he asked with a grin. "It’s me, no question. It’s not even close."

If one thing stands out since Taylor was inserted into the regular playing rotation on Feb. 6, it is that he has used his speed to amp up the fast break. In games played before Feb. 6, the Hawks averaged 9.7 fast-break points per game. Since then, the Hawks have averaged 11.7 fast-break points.

As Budenholzer noted, Taylor has found seams and cracks in opposing transition defenses, as he did in a Nov. 6 win in Cleveland.

An NBA court is 94 feet long, or just over 30 yards. Taylor has excelled at making the three-second dashes to the rim that leave defenders in sub-optimal position to stop him.

In the last game before the All-Star break, the Pistons held a 30-point lead over the Hawks with 3:57 left in the third quarter. From that point onward, Taylor had 13 points and 6 assists – and he didn't miss a shot. His tempo was a huge factor in a comeback attempt that fell just a bit short.

​The numbers back up Taylor as a fast break waiting to happen. He ranks third on the team in fast-break points (1.4) despite playing significantly fewer minutes than some of the starters. In addition, he has the highest transition frequency on the team: more than 20 percent of his possessions have ended in fast breaks.

Taylor also pointed out a useful side benefit of pushing the ball in transition.

"I'm really just starting to know why I'm here: to get on the floor and use my speed down the floor getting to the rim, which allows John, Musky and Dewayne to get rebounds over smalls."

When both are handling point guard duties in a game, Schröder and Taylor are a contrast in styles. Schröder uses changes of speed and direction to set up outstretched finishes with his long wingspan. Taylor takes a different approach, more direct and bullish, to make the airspace he needs to take shots at the rim. It often involves Taylor bumping back an off-balance defender with his body.

"He tries to look for contact," Schröder said of Taylor. "I think it's good to get into somebody's body first, you know? You try to get the foul. You're looking for the contact. I'm a different player, but I still want to add that to my game. But he is a hell of a finisher."

Taylor said one of his goals going forward is to get open shots for his teammates, and he is progressing in that area. In the last four games that he has played 22 or more minutes, Taylor has averaged 6.3 assists per game.

"Once you play five or six or seven minutes in a row, you start to just feel comfortable," Taylor said. "You start to know what you're looking for, especially as a young guard in this league and point guard being one of the toughest positions."

As Taylor's comfort level increases, the pass/shoot point-guard decisions that he has to make will improve as get a better feel for Budenholzer's motion offense. And he will have to learn to make them quickly, because as a super-fast guard, it is only going to take him an eye-blink to get to the rim.

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Taylor Using Lightning-Quick Speed To Ignite Hawks' Fast Break

The brackets are out and Madness is upon us in College Hoops.

If you're having trouble with your NCAA tournament bracket, below are a few ideas that may help:

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A Guide To Filling Out Your Bracket, Atlanta Hawks Style

As the Hawks retool their franchise with young talent, 20-year-old rising star John Collins certainly figures to a be an important piece. He has also been what the Hawks would call a 'Most Important Guy'.

The Hawks use the term, often abbreviated to MIG, to refer to a key component of their help defense.  

"The ‘Most Important Guy’ basically just talks to the backside defense," forward Taurean Prince said of the MIG, whose job it is to rotate over and hinder a shot attempt at the rim. "Most likely it's going to be the lower guy guarding the opposite corner or opposite block." 

Head coach Mike Budenholzer said that he borrowed the term from an area outside the realm of sports.

"The MIG is a military term, even though I don't have any military background," Budenholzer said. "On a lot of teams that bottom guy, that weakside defender, is critical if something happens and you're broken down off the dribble or you're beat. That person has got to be there."

In recent weeks, Collins has thrived in the role. Take, for instance, this play from a Feb. 13 game vs. Milwaukee.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jason Terry execute a dribble handoff that frees Terry to drive on the right side. When the defense shifts to deny Terry, it opens a cutting lane for Jabari Parker from the same side. Parker gets the ball with a head of steam and a clear path to the rim, but Collins fulfills his MIG duties to perfection.

The numbers bear out Collins' recent acclimation to the role. 

In games played prior to Jan. 15, opponents converted 59.7 of their field goal attempts when Collins was defending the rim. The Hawks allowed 107.4 points per 100 possessions with Collins on the court.

In 17 games since Jan. 15, opponents have converted 49.2 percent of their shots over Collins at the rim, and the Hawks have allowed just 103.0 points per 100 possessions with Collins on the floor, the best mark among the 10 rotation players averaging 15 or more minutes per game.

While the MIG is most often the player closest to the baseline, it can vary depending on the situation. Communication is the key.

On this play, Dennis Schröder has the task of guarding Evan Fournier, Orlando's most dangerous outside scorer. Collins assumes the role of MIG, a good choice given his ability to protect the rim, even though he approaches the role from a more challenging angle.

Collins said that he is beginning to feel more comfortable against the premier bigs of the NBA.

"It has been a journey," he said. "I figured out that I'm not as far behind as I thought I was. These guys are obviously at a really elite level, but for me, it's just all about going out there and just playing basketball and being myself."

In recent weeks, Collins has improved at jumping straight up in the air to contest shots without fouling. Even if he doesn't block the shot, he has an excellent chance of altering it.

"(Collins can) alter shots and create rim protection for us with the way that the game has been called the last 4 or 5 years with verticality," Budenholzer said.

Of course, Collins isn't doing it alone. Sometimes the MIG needs his teammates to help him in his role as the help defender, as Prince explained.

"If they kick it to the back side of (the MIG's defensive assignment), then the next man rotates," Prince said. 

Prince performed that role on this play, sealing off the potential passing angle to Utah's Rudy Gobert after Collins slid over to contest the shot.  

Without an option for a dump off pass, Alec Burks of the Jazz has limited options, yet putting up a shot over Collins may have been the worst of them. 

(Side note: the two previous plays came in a win over Utah. Collins entered in the second half and spurred a 32-13 run to clinch the game. The Jazz have won 11 consecutive games since that night.)

Optimal basketball defense will always require a seamless integration of five hustling players who help each other and rotate to patch problems as they arise. The young Hawks have slowly begun to figure out how to make it all work. With his strong defensive play over the past month, Collins has demonstrated the promise to be the player who is the centerpiece: a very important ‘Most Important Guy’.

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Who Is Atlanta's "MIG", and What Does It Mean?

Perhaps it is reasonable to still call Tyler Dorsey a West Coast kid.  

In January, Dorsey was pleased to catch up with friends and family on a road trip that took the Hawks through both Oregon and California, the states where he played college and high school basketball. And Dorsey plans to use the upcoming break to fly home and attend the NBA's All-Star Weekend. Staples Center is just 10 miles from his alma mater, Maranatha High School.

"I've got to go," Dorsey said. "I don't know when the next All-Star Game will be in L.A. back home, so I'm definitely going for my little stint." 

When Dorsey attends the Mtn Dew Kickstart Rising Stars event Saturday, not only will he be supporting teammates Taurean Prince and John Collins, but he will also be rooting for Dillon Brooks of the Memphis Grizzlies, with whom he played two seasons at the University of Oregon.

Despite the tight bond between him and Brooks, don't expect Dorsey to be quiet about the Hawks' recent win over the Grizzlies.

"I'll probably chop it up (at All-Star Weekend) and tell him how I feel about it," Dorsey said with a laugh.

If Dorsey really wants to jokingly poke Brooks in the ribs, he might bring up this crossover, a good example of the offensive versatility that Dorsey has given the Hawks. 

One of the things that Dorsey does well is that when he handles the ball, he probes the defender's tendencies with a side-to-side dribble across his body. If the defender commits, Dorsey has the ball control to yank it back in the opposite direction and create a driving lane.

But Dorsey's offensive arsenal extends beyond the occasional crossover. He is shooting 36.4 percent on threes. When he gets in the paint, he makes crisp, decisive moves that result in a quality shot. He is also starting to live up to the billing that General Manager Travis Schlenk laid out for him on draft night. Schlenk said then that he thought Dorsey could develop into a secondary ballhandler and creator.

First and foremost, Dorsey is a scorer, a fact noted by his coach. 

"Tyler has a knack for scoring," Head Coach Mike Budenholzer said after a recent game. "We want him to continue to work on his defensive activity, getting better. The more he plays, the more he’ll have to learn to read and see the game. I like his aggressiveness, I like the way he’s playing."

Dorsey has played 20 or more minutes in a game five times, all within the past month. In those games, Dorsey is averaging 11.8 points and 3.2 assists per game on 45.5 percent shooting from the field. The most impressive part of those five games is that despite playing 124 minutes and dishing out 16 assists, Dorsey only turned the ball over once. 

The NBA stat 'turnover ratio' measures the number of turnovers that a player averages per 100 possessions used. Dorsey's turnover ratio for the season is 5.2, the 4th-best number among players who have appeared in 30 games while averaging 10 or more minutes. There are 323 players on the list. For a ballhandling guard to have so few turnovers is amazing. For a rookie guard to be so mistake-free is doubly impressive. 

When opponents guard his pick-and-roll plays with two defenders, Dorsey is making the right play. When opponents guard his pick-and-roll plays with more than two defenders, he is finding open teammates on the periphery and still making the correct play.  

Dorsey said that getting more minutes has helped him shake some rust.

"I'm getting my wind back, actually. I'm in good condition, but I haven't played (this much) in a long time," he said. "Having that wind up and helps me build for whenever my opportunities come with more minutes to be more conditioned and ready."

Dorsey knows that while his offense will always be an asset for him, the thing that will earn him the most minutes is what he does on the defensive end.

"To be out on the floor, you have to get stops," he said. 

Right now, Dorsey is making enough stops and grabbing enough boards to get out on the floor and show what he can do, and what he does best is to make it difficult for opponents to get stops.