Former ASU point guard and Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins speaks with the media during shootaround prior to the Nets' matchup with the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday, Nov. 12. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)When Brooklyn Nets head coach Lionel Hollins makes a trip out to the Valley, it's usually done without much fanfare.
Why? Well, he lived in Phoenix for 18 years, and he said it almost seems like he's never really left.
"The opportunity I had here as a student-athlete, it was all great; it was special," Hollins said. "But it was so long ago."
Hollins joked that while he'd seen that ASU football beat Notre Dame, because he and his team are on the road so often, he doesn't follow it as much as he'd like to.
"I've been back here so many times since I left," Hollins said. "I get to see people and family, there's still people in the (Suns) organization that I know. I see them during the year, too."
With Hollins' blue-collar, old school approach, the Nets are off to a 4-2 start, clashing tonight with the upstart Phoenix Suns.
With 10-years as an NBA player under his belt, and a coach since 1985, the journeyman head coach has seen a lot in his tenure pacing the sidelines, getting his start as an assistant coach at ASU and then moving west as an assistant on the Suns staff, where his professional coaching career began.
The pace and style of the NBA has changed a lot since the '80s, but it's worth noting that the "small ball" lineup of Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe, and Isaiah Thomas is a unique challenge for a team like Brooklyn, with traditional big men like Kevin Garnett and Brook Lopez patrolling the paint.
"I can't think of another team that's more unorthodox from a basketball purist standpoint," Hollins said. "They usually play just one big, and run up and down and try to shoot threes."
Brooklyn Nets point guard Deron Williams speaks with the media during shootaround prior to the Nets' matchup with the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)With 6-foot-3 Deron Williams and 6-foot-7 Joe Johnson in the Nets' backcourt, Hollins suggested that Wednesday's game with the Suns will be dictated by and battle of philosophies and matchups as the action on the court itself.
"It's big against small, quick against inside power, three-point shooting against balance," Hollins said. "I think the Suns are playing extremely well. But if we don't turn the ball over, contest their three-point shoots, and keep them out of the point, we have a chance."
Brooklyn Nets power foward Kevin Garnett speaks with the media during shootaround prior to the Nets' matchup with the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo by Stefan Modrich)Hollins is known for his high expectations and standards that make his squads some of the most disciplined units in the league. But with a grueling 82-game schedule and frequent back-to-back road trips, there's not much time to stop and admire past success.
"We're building," Hollins said. "We're not where we want to be, and hopefully we won't be playing the way we are right now later in the year."
The first few weeks of the season, he said, aren't so much a definite proving ground as much as a laboratory, especially as teams with new free agent signees acclimate to live game action in their new surroundings.
"It's nice to see where we stand," Hollins said. "Everybody is trying to scratch out wins wherever they can, you can't expect to be playing your best basketball six games in to the season. I don't think that the teams we're playing will play the way they are now in January or February."
Some teams, like the Houston Rockets (6-1), the Memphis Grizzlies — Hollins' former team — (7-1) and the Toronto Raptors (7-1) have started out incredibly fast, while the Eastern Conference front-runner Cleveland Cavaliers (3-3) and defending champion San Antonio Spurs (4-3) have ran into some roadblocks in the early going.
"It's premature to put any team on a pedestal at this stage of the season," Hollins said. "Everybody thought Cleveland was supposed to come out of the box and be undefeated and flip everybody by 20 points and that hasn't happened."
In order to withstand the grind of a demanding regular season, Hollins said that mental toughness is crucial.
"It's important every night," Hollins said. "When you play a team that relies on beating you offensively, it's important to not get down and go 'Whose man was that?' You just have to keep playing. There will be wide-open guys shooting threes and driving down the lane, but you can't worry about it; you just have to stay focused on the process."
Reach the assistant sports editor at smodrich@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @StefanJModrich
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