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What does and doesn’t Tyler Dorsey bring to the table for the Hawks?

By Tyler Sellers

ATLANTA, GA - JUNE 26: General Manager Travis Schlenk of the Atlanta Hawks introduces new draft picks John Collins, Tyler Dorsey, and Alpha Kaba during a Press Conference on June 26, 2017 at Fox Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - JUNE 26: General Manager Travis Schlenk of the Atlanta Hawks introduces new draft picks John Collins, Tyler Dorsey, and Alpha Kaba during a Press Conference on June 26, 2017 at Fox Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Scott Cunningham/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Atlanta Hawks foundation of their rebuild has been predicated on potential and upside. How much of that does Tyler Dorsey offer the team?

With the 41st pick of the 2017 NBA draft the Atlanta Hawks selected 6’4″ guard Tyler Dorsey in the second round. The sophomore led the Fighting Ducks of Oregon to the Final Four of the NCAA tournament this past March, including a 27 point, 5 rebound performance in an upset of top seeded Kansas in the Elite Eight.

Dorsey earned the nickname, “Mr. March”, for the variety of clutch shots he made in most of no. 3 seeded Oregon’s victories in route to their Final Four game versus North Carolina. He enjoyed a brilliant collegiate career, for the brief two years at the Pac-12 powerhouse.

To give you an idea of how successful he was, he hit 42.3 percent of his 3-pointers last season on the way to 14.6 points per game. Often times however, a prospects college stats are only numbers that don’t supply much assurance of the type of NBA player he will be.

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For the Hawks to take strides towards their championship aspirations, they need to stockpile as many sharpshooters as possible. New general manager Travis Schlenk knows a little about that, as the assistant general manager of the Golden State Warriors, he helped construct a team who won 2 of the past 3 titles by making it rain like no storm the league has ever seen.

Tyler Dorsey is a solid building block to start with for the Hawks to develop a potent long range attack. Some of the best college 3-point shooters have trouble from beyond the arc after making the jump to the NBA. This is entirely because the NCAA 3-point shot is of a shorter distance than that of the NBA. Thanks to Wikipedia, we know the collegiate 3-point line is 19′ 9″ from the basket, as opposed to the 23′ 9 distance of the NBA’s.

If the NBA decides to add a 4-point shot someday, Dorsey could actually find that challenging. Until then, he’ll have to settle for being credited with just 3 from out there, because he has great range. He was able to make 155 triples at Oregon.

His marksmanship from long distance is by far his greatest strength. It’s not very often a 2nd round pick has a well rounded game with multiple qualities. So, the Hawks did well to find a specialist to utilize. Dorsey can make a positive impact on the game in other ways too.

The Hawks could use more spot up shooters on the perimeter and he fits the bill there. Sprinting defenders attempting to close out will really fly by him, should he decide to use a pump fake. He is most dangerous in transition with catch and shoot opportunities.

Tyler Dorsey
TARRYTOWN, NY – AUGUST 11: Tyler Dorsey /

Dorsey won’t be confused for a small forward. Much of last season, and prior to that too, head coach Mike Budenholzer put two shooting guards or small forwards in at the same time. That obviously can put a team at a disadvantage, especially when it’s for long stretches of games. That’s so aggravating to me, like, just put the players where their supposed to be so there’s not mismatches every where.

While that makes for a simpler world of which is also a better place, the Hawks now have themselves a prospect mired with flaws. He can string together large sums of points quickly by getting into a zone from deep, but many of the other aspects of his game are in need of development. It’s a good thing the Hawks new D- league team will make its debut this season in Erie, Pennsylvania, according to NBA.com.

The video did a great job of portraying Dorsey’s weaknesses for you already, but a few of his downfalls will hurt him more than others as he transitions to the NBA. His glaring absence of decent ball handling skills for his position and lack of playmaking are going to prevent him from cracking the rotation any time soon.

He doesn’t have any coaches or scouts paying him votes of confidence for his defensive efforts at this time. He really struggles keeping his man in front of him and defending the pick and roll because of tortoise like lateral quickness. His motor during situations that call for him to really hustle doesn’t do anything to impress.

Tyler Dorsey could be invaluable to help the Hawks improve on what was among the league’s worst team 3-point shooting last season. Coach Bud actually doesn’t call upon players unable to adhere to what he expects defensively very much however, regardless of how good offensive capabilities could be.

Next: Five bold takes for the Atlanta Hawks next season

He may develop into a special talent who gets an important role with the Hawks, I think he’ll be going through a lot of reps in the D-league before that happens though. It may be a long, drawn out process until Dorsey is afforded his opportunity to contribute for Atlanta.