(Photo: Elite Guard Training)
By now, you know that Drew Hanlen is one of the best NBA skills trainers in the association and works with the likes of Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, among others. For the Wizards, he has been working with Bradley Beal since the eighth grade and also Kelly Oubre Jr. Hanlen is in town for the Clippers and Cavs game this weekend and had a few minutes to chat about his two clients that play at Capital One Arena.
On Kelly Oubre Jr.’s shot mechanic tweaks:
“At the start of the season, I thought he really locked in on the mechanics that we had changed this summer and obviously, he was getting great results. As the season has kind of progressed, fatigue has played more of a factor. There’s been some slippage in mechanics. We were able to get in the gym last night and try and refine it and get back to what we did. I like where it’s at. He’s still going to have to improve shooting threes off the dribble, which will kind of be the next step for him with his shooting mechanics. Overall, he’s up seven or eight percent from last year and we are just going to keep refining and tweaking it every year so that hopefully he becomes a knockdown shooter.”
On Oubre giving consistent effort starting on the defensive end:
“Coach Brooks and I we try to relay the same message. Just because that is important that they don’t have multiple things on their mind. For Kelly specifically, we know that his value to the team is a defender first and a guy that can score off the catch, whether that is catch and shoot or catch and attack the close out. We’ve kind of turned him into a three-and-D specialist that will slowly expand his game over the years.”
On Bradley Beal’s improvement:
“I think this year he’s taken on a bigger burden as far as his scoring and creating as well. Last year he had a great scoring year, but this year, you’ve seen his play making ability go up to another level. We’d like to get his efficiency a little bit up, but the fact that he is scoring 24 points per game and not shot the ball as well as he is going to has been promising. Once we get his shot consistent and he starts feeling it from deep, we think that his numbers and efficiency will both go up.”
On Oubre and Beal’s next steps.
“For Kelly, it’s just locking in and getting good at the things he needs to: attacking close outs, finishing around the rim, and defending. For Brad, it’s scoring, creating, and the other thing for him is being able to continue to find ways to be more aggressive when teams try to double team or throw different systems and schemes at him to slow him down, which he saw during the road trip when he was away. That’s the thing that as the coverage changes, just continue to be smarter and be ready for anything that teams throw at him.”