When Josh Richardson came off a screen in San Antonio on Wednesday and received the basketball, he heard the sweetest word come from a top-coached NBA team, a word no one had said to him outside an occasional playground game:
"Shooter!" a few of San Antonio's defenders shouted.
You want to measure how far Richardson has come? What the 40th pick in the draft last June has shockingly emerged to be? How a master strategist like Spurs coach Gregg Popovich views him?
Suddenly, Richardson is the targeted "shooter" to defend. Suddenly, he's the guy teams fear on the outside. Suddenly, too, he's dealing with success, and so in relating this story a smile flashes across his face even as his words say something else.
"It's cool, but I've just got to keep working," he said.
This is a story you don't hear enough in sports. You hear of great talent. You hear of athletic freaks. But Richardson became this good of a shooter this fast in his rookie season by realizing one day he wasn't very good.
That particular day, a NBA scout asked him bluntly, "Why do you shoot like that?"
"I don't know, that's how I've always shot," Richardson said.
For the first time, he heard why he was a mediocre 31 percent shooter even from college's closer 3-point line. His elbow stuck out as he shot. His head leaned to the left. His hips, too, twisted to the left.
Richardson didn't shrug and say this form got him through four good years at Tennessee and to the edge of the NBA.
"I changed my technique pretty drastically," he said.
This, then, is a story of hours in the gym. Of hundreds of shots taken daily even before he was drafted. Of working on specific items with Heat assistant Chris Quinn as his personal tutor as the franchise's program entails.
"The first things I worked on after getting drafted were shooting off a screen and ball handling," he said.
It's a story of being demoted twice to the Development League earlier this season, of playing in 13 of the Heat's first 37 games and of continually putting in a scripted workout beyond the normal practice.
Richardson won't tell what those private workouts specifically entail.
"I've got to keep that secret," he says.
But each day after practice he shoots dozens of 3-point shots in a contest with veteran Joe Johnson. He also works out with fellow rookie Justise Winslow on off-days as veterans rest bodies.
"They're in the gym all the time together," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "On the road, they'll find gyms on off-days. I don't even know where they go. But they're working on shooting, ball handling, finishing."
Good pro teams draft well. Great ones develop players into gems. Since the loss of LeBron James two seasons ago, the Heat has developed a youthful bridge to the future in Hassan Whiteside, Richardson, Winslow and the injured Tyler Johnson.
"It's all about work," Richardson said.
Lots of players talk of hard work in sports. It's to the point you often can't tell the hard workers from the hard talkers. But the proof is in Richardson's game. The mediocre college shooter has scored in double figures in seven of the past nine games and his 47.9 percentage leads the league among players taking at least two 3-point shots a game.
Since being injected into a regular role after the All-Star break, he's made 60.3 percent (35-of-58) of his 3-pointers. And he's not a one-dimensional player. He threw down another driving dunk Friday in a win against Orlando. And there's his defense.
"That's a given part of my game," he said.
The rest is a lesson to young players everywhere. Sometimes you can be close to your dream and have to change to reach it.
The Miami HEAT host the Brooklyn Nets Monday night at AmericanAirlines Arena. The HEAT defeated the Nets 102-98 in their last meeting on January 26. Tip-off is set for 7:30 PM. Television coverage on FOX Sports Sun begins at 7:00 PM
