With the 11th pick of the second round in the 2017 NBA draft, the Atlanta Hawks selected Tyler Dorsey out of Oregon. Dubbed “Mr. March” due to a scintillating performance in the NCAA Tournament, Dorsey came in as a proven shooter from deep – something that will always have a place in the NBA.
Though he got very few reps to start the year, with the Hawks logjammed at the shooting guard position with entrenched holdovers like Kent Bazemore, Malcolm Delaney and Marco Belinelli all splitting time, Dorsey showed flashes in limited moments with the team during his first few months in the league.
In an extended garbage time game against the Houston Rockets in early November, Dorsey scored 10 points off the bench as the Rockets walloped the Hawks at home. That 10 points would stand as his highest total for almost three months, as Dorsey bounced back and forth between Atlanta and the Hawks G-League affiliate in Erie.
Once it was clear that Dorsey could dominate that competition at that level, which he did to the tune of 19 points a game with the BayHawks in over 33 minutes a game – getting up more than 8 three-point attempts per contest in the G-League – the Hawks were comfortable calling him up for good.
After the start of 2018, it became clear that Dorsey would play a bigger role for the remainder of the season, and Hawks’ brass made that clear by waiving Marco Belinelli around the trade deadline. Malcolm Delaney also got injured, which opened up a more rotational role for Dorsey – leading to some solid numbers in his rookie year.