Jordan Hawkins embodies a Mamba mentality with the Pelicans

Winning a national title was like a movie. It definitely was an out-of-body experience. I mean, it's like 75,000 people there. When the final buzzer went off, everything was so surreal. It was like a movie. My name is Jordan Hawkins, former UConn guard, and I'm going to the NBA. I remember when playing, I was like five years old, back in the D.C. area, that's where I'm from. I remember playing outside with my dad all the time. One thing that I really remember, I was like in the rec league, and I hit like a half court shot to win the game. So that's probably like one of my best basketball memories as a kid. I grew up in Gettysburg, Maryland, Played high school basketball at Gettysburg and the Mata. Committed to UConn from there, I'm from UConn. Won a national championship, and now I'm getting ready for an NBA draft. Good. My name is Nisharda. I've been helping Jordan Hawkins, the great guard from UConn. I got a chance to meet Jordan last summer. I was impressed with how hard he worked in his preparation for this last season, and no surprise, he had a great season at UConn. My pregame ritual starts the night before the game, so I get shots up before the game, and then we have to shoot around the day after. After shoot around, I go home, shower, take a nap, meditate before the game, and by time, it's game time, I have something on my head, ready to play. I'm improving in this pre-draft process, just putting more weight on, getting ready for the NBA, physicality, just sharpening everything up, all my offensive stuff, so at the next level, I can be prepared for it. We just try to prepare them for being a professional. What that means is we try to get them in the best shape they possibly can be in to get ready for these workouts. I think the hard part for these guys, you know, they work six days a week. It can become a grind, but like, you know, we tell our players it's such a blessing to be able to just play basketball for a living. So every day, just show up and do the work. And if you show up and do the work, everything takes care of itself. It's the mental grind every single day. He's gotten stronger. I can tell the work at Proactive in the weight room has helped him a lot. We want to keep sharpening his shot. He can shoot it. He's a great shooter off the catch, off the bounce, on the move. And we just keep working on that every single day. Good Jordan, quick, quick, good, quick feet, good. Quick hands, quick feet, good, good Jordan, nice. Good, turn around, other way. Control the ball, good stance Jordan, that's good. Good feet, nice, good feet, good. Good, turn around, other leg, good. Good, nice and high, good. Growing up in the DMV area influenced my game because a bunch of elite guys that come out of there like Kevin Durant, Mike Beasley, Victor Oladipo and so many more names. So the only way to stick out is to compete. Boom, boom, up, yeah, yeah, good. Nice, one more. Left, left. Yeah, good, tough. Get that thing up and high. Nice and high, nice and high. Yeah, good. Now cross the right, reverse it on this side. Good handle, Jordan. Yeah, good handle, Jordan. Handle looks good. Nice. Control it. Up, good. Get into it. Yeah, up, yes. Good, one more. Take it, boom, get to space. I like that, good. I would describe myself as a player, a knockdown shooter, elite movement shooter. I can spread the court out for his teammates. I like to drive. I'm a competitor. It's the most important thing you can have as a basketball player. Jordan's already a great shooter, so we don't need to really work on that. What we want to show is what he actually has is great footwork, and I think that's a big separator in the NBA. You know, players like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry, they have such great footwork. We're just consistently working on that and trying to get that better every single day. Basketball runs my family. My dad played in high school. He didn't get the chance to play in college, but I got a bunch of cousins. and actually my cousin, Angel Reese, just won the national championship as well with LSU. I mean, I'm not the loudest guy, not the most vocal guy, but I do consider myself a leader because I do pick my guys up when they're down or if they need help with anything, or I can just help them anyway. I'm that type of leader. Despite being one of the top prospects in the draft, I really don't put too much extra pressure on myself. I just really look at it as a blessing that my dreams are coming true. What I've been improving on is gaining weight, gaining like 10 pounds, 11 pounds since the draft process started. eating a lot of foods, been lifting a whole lot of weights. I don't want to get Jordan in trouble here, but he's got great footwork that reminds me of Kobe. Kobe had great footwork, I thought, and I think his ability to put it on the floor, shoot on the move, shoot off handoffs like Klay Thompson, you know, they both have similar size. They move really well without the ball, but they can also make and create shots with the ball, so I think that's a separator for him. Kobe Bryant always been one of my favorite players. He is my favorite player ever. He's definitely the guy that inspired me the most. But guys I players like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, those guys I look at their game a lot. And Jordan is one of the elite shot makers in the draft and with the work he's done I feel like he's ready to take that next step and be a good shooter in the NBA. It's about fit in the NBA and Jordan would be a good fit for a lot of teams but especially a system that involves movement, player movement, ball movement. Jordan will excel in that like he just did at UConn and he was able to win a championship doing that. My biggest goal for my career is to win the NBA championship. That's probably like the biggest thing. I want to win on all three levels high school, college, and NBA. That'd be really cool. Be an all-star one day. If I hit those, I'll be happy. I'll see you guys on draft night.