One-On-One: Kevin Huerter On Leadership, Playoff Hopes, and More
Save for Trae Young, few Hawks have been more integral to the team’s limited success this season than Kevin Huerter. Since the calendar turned, no player on Atlanta’s roster has played more minutes than Huerter, a jack-of-all trades who helps smooth over some of the team’s many rough spots. At 6-foot-7, the guard has the size to guard primary options on the wing in a pinch and the instincts to fit into Atlanta’s broader team concepts. A 38.6 percent career 3-point shooter, Huerter helps create space off the ball but can also serve as a secondary playmaker with it. Against the Wizards on Friday, he stepped into a primary ball-handling role as Young battled an illness and racked up a career-high 11 assists to just one turnover.
“Kevin really took on a leadership role tonight, just communicating all of our coverages, communicating to the other guys,” Lloyd Pierce said after that game. “His leadership is getting better. He had to play some point guard, we had to put the ball in his hands a little more than normal, and he’s always been a willing passer.
“That [his 11 assists] was just a reflection of him stepping up in that role.”
Atlanta has counted on Huerter’s voice and versatility this season, and will continue to as it moves forward. With limited and reticent players throughout the rotation, Huerter’s ability to communicate and fill gaps on the court helps tie the young Hawks together, and will become even more important as the team matures and begins playing meaningful games of real consequence.
After Monday morning’s shootaround, Huerter took a few minutes to talk with Sports Illustrated about his leadership, the Hawks’ playoff ambitions next season, and much more.
The conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
This team struggled in first quarters early in the season, figured it out for a while, and then got off to slow starts in the last few games. I realize you’ve dealt with some injuries during that stretch, but what caused that reversion?
I think it’s a sign of a young team, honestly. We gotta figure out a way to refocus and put together another really good stretch of games and have that for the next 16 games, not just for the five after the All-Star break. So that type of thing can’t happen, and we’ve talked about that extensively as a team, of what our next step is gonna be -- and I’m sure you guys have heard about that -- and Lloyd’s talked a lot about it. So for us it’s maturing, and that’s across the whole team, not just a couple guys.
I was going to ask about that. You guys had the meeting the other day where you set the goal of making the playoffs next year. What stood out to you from that day?
For a while, we didn’t want to talk about it too much. It was like, in a way, the players didn’t really know what it took to get there. For us, we were like, ‘Okay, we’re bad,’ and then whatever we finished last year -- bottom-three in the East -- we were like, ‘Oh, we’re not that far from the playoffs.’ So for us, that was our next step coming into this year, and obviously things have worked out like they were [last year], so as an organization I guess we’re starting to talk about what our next step is as a group, not just a couple of us players saying that we don’t want to be bad again, we want to make the playoffs. So that was just good to hear, just talking about what our future can be and setting a goal for ourselves talking about what we need to do to get there.
It feels like that topic was something y’all have danced around all season, but was that the first time you explicitly named that goal?
Yeah, it was. And we talked about it. We’ve talked about it all year how we prepare to win and we’re not close to being that playoff team. And then all our rookies now aren’t rookies anymore, they’re 60 games in, and that happens over the course of the year. And now, like I said, we’re talking about what our next steps were and the type of stuff we need to do to get there.
How important can Clint be in that process, having been through some of the more intense playoff battles in the West over the last few years?
He can be huge, and he’s done a really good job of that so far coming in. I know that we’ve needed it, and for his type of experience, especially young in his career -- he’s only 25 or whatever he is -- and he’s done a really good job of that. Being a voice in the locker room and constantly trying to be on guys to play hard and cover for each other, especially defensively. So he’s gonna be a huge help whenever we get him on the court, and even his voice off the court.
Coach has mentioned your voice and your leadership recently, specifically after the Washington game. What’s it like stepping into that kind of role at such a young age? Do you feel like you’re at the point in your career where you can be that type of player for this team?
It is a little bit different. Honestly, it’s a position I found myself in college early on, of being a second guy and playing a lot of minutes. You can’t play 35-plus minutes a game and never say anything. I’m starting, I think, to get more comfortable being able to do that and being able tot talk to guys and get on guys. I feel like I know all of our stuff, I know our coverages, I know our offensive sets as well as anybody on the team, so Lloyd’s talked about that, that I need to help guys and pull guys along. Especially if I’m playing big minutes, I have to be one of those [players], so that’s the mindset going forward.
You’re averaging over seven assists in your last four games. Has anything opened up for you as a playmaker in that time, or is it just a matter of having the ball in your hands more often?
I think a little bit of both. Especially in the Washington game with Trae out, and then last game, I’m kind of the type of player that gets a feel for each individual game and then reacts and is able to do different things in games. One game I think I had seven, eight assists, and then the next game I got seven, eight rebounds. I think that’s the type of player I can be -- do a lot of different things and whatever we need for us to win. In that Washington game I needed to play point guard and get guys the ball. Cam was hot, he had it going, and John was finishing and rolling, and so I needed to be the guy to get those guys shots. But going into tonight, obviously we have a whole team, and if I need to be a guy that starts taking more shots, I can be that. So for me, it’s just kind of game by game.
There have been reports recently about the NBA potentially playing games without fans in attendance [because of COVID-19]. Have you thought about what it’d be like to basically play games in an empty gym?
It would be weird. Obviously fans are a huge part of the NBA. They make our contracts what they are and they make how much the NBA’s grown to be what it is. So they’re extremely important and it would be weird.
It’s funny, I talked to my dad and he played a game in college where it was the measles outbreak, so they actually played a game with no fans, and he said it was weird. He said it felt like a scrimmage or practice, like a closed scrimmage. It was definitely a different type of energy. So I’m sure that’ll be addressed. I know there’s all these meetings going on now, and we’ll figure out what they come up with. Fans are a huge part of our game, but obviously we play for each other, we play for our team, we play for a city. We’ll see what happens.
Have you given your breakfast club presentation yet?
I haven’t. I did one last year. I talked about drunk driving. There was a situation that happened when I was in high school and a lot of close friends of mine were involved in an accident because of that. So I just talked about that. It’s an educational type of meeting, stuff that could affect our team, so that was something I wanted to talk about.
As a Maryland guy, what are your expectations for the Terps in the Big Ten Tournament this week?
I have all the expectations in the world. I think a lot of people have high expectations. I don’t think they’ve won a game in the Big Ten Tournament in like three years, though. I know I got bounced both of my years and then they got bounced the first game last year in an upset. So they’ve gotta start with one, and they play the winner of Penn State and Indiana or Nebraska. They’ve gotta start with one and go from there.
