#1994 HOUSTON ROCKETS ROSTER HOW TO#

As a rookie, he had to just understand how to fit in. It surprised all of y’all, but nothing he does on the basketball court surprises me.

… The kid puts the work in, so his success doesn’t surprise me. He shot 40-something percent from the three-point line. … It’s all about just him being comfortable with it. “This kid, he’s going to develop an 18-foot, mid-range game off the dribble. We get right into the details of basketball: ‘This is what I see you need. I believe in having an hour or less - sometimes I go for 45 minutes, sometimes it’s 55 minutes. I don’t believe in having two-hour workouts as far as basketball. “Once they get to where they need as far as the game of basketball, all of them always contact me, from John Wall to Bradley Beal to Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander), Austin Rivers - guys that I put time into. This kid is an undeveloped talent, and once he knows how passionate I am with him and he (starts) to learn’ - I’m like his big uncle. And I was happy I was delighted when we drafted him. When we got him, we were shocked that we got him. Tyrese wasn’t a top-15 pick, top-10, lottery pick. I understand how to be successful in a basketball game. “I understand the concept of the game of basketball. “Who didn’t expect that? Every guy I work with takes huge leaps every year they play,” he said. Not a good team, but a great team.” No surprises hereĪfter Maxey slipped to 21st in the 2020 draft, he showed promise as an irregularly used rookie, assumed point guard duties to start the next season when Ben Simmons held out of training camp, and made tremendous improvements in Year 2.Įven for many fervent believers in Maxey, 17.5 points per game and 42.7 percent from three-point range (an increase of nearly 13 percent) surely exceeded expectations. If a team had 15 Tyrese Maxeys on their team - with his work ethic - that’d be a great team. “Dealing with a guy like Tyrese Maxey, it’s like … a workout guru or ‘this is how you should work out.’ If every player in the league had his intensity and his work ethic - wow. “No, I’m not that hard on guys,” he said with a chuckle. Has Cassell ever worried that realness is too harsh for Maxey? He enjoys me being, like they say these days, just very, very real with these guys.” He enjoys how I approach player development. We talk frequently about how we’ve got to make not just Max better, but other guys on our team better. “Spence is like a sponge, man,” Cassell told NBC Sports Philadelphia in a phone interview Tuesday. His job now requires tons of time alongside Spencer - they’ve been holding workouts this summer with Maxey and James Harden in Los Angeles - and he clearly doesn’t mind that at all. Not just Spencer, but also Austin and Doc and Callie - all of them. Rivers celebrated the Celtics’ 2008 NBA title as a kid in Boston’s locker room, watched Cassell’s work with his brother Austin Rivers, and now calls the three-time champion “like an uncle, almost, to me.”Ĭassell feels the same way, describing himself as “close to the whole (Rivers) family. For whatever reason, when he’s straightforward it just resonates, because everybody respects him as a player so much - and also as a coach so much - that it just sounds different coming from him.” And the way he calls it out, it’s funny he’s just very straightforward. If you mess up or BS it a little bit, he’ll call it out. “He’s very quick-witted,” Rivers, the youngest son of Sixers head coach Doc Rivers, told NBC Sports Philadelphia in a phone interview this month. When Cassell and Sixers skill development coach Spencer Rivers run the 21-year-old through his pregame routine, Cassell’s jokes look like they tend to land. Indeed, the Sixers’ 52-year-old assistant coach never seems to struggle matching Maxey energy. Asked in January about Sam Cassell’s impact on his vocal leadership, Tyrese Maxey lit up and flashed his signature grin.

1994 houston rockets roster