An interview with someone who knows Larry Nance Jr. best.
It’s pretty obvious from his full name, Larry Donnell Nance Jr., that he isn’t the first Larry Donnell Nance in his immediate family. But how common is it to be a nine-year NBA veteran and still not be the most renowned professional basketball player named Larry Donnell Nance?
Larry Nance, now Sr., was a three-time NBA All-Star and a three-time member of an NBA All-Defensive team during his 13-year career between 1981 and 1994. He split his career between the Suns and the Cavaliers as a high-flying dunker and rim-protecting power forward, and he finished with career averages of 17.1 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game in 920 career contests.
Junior follows in his footsteps as an NBA player, and he now finds himself a member of the Hawks after an offseason trade with the New Orleans Pelicans.
James Ellis of Betway had a chance to interview Larry Nance Sr. about his son, the Hawks, and many other topics. He provided me the transcript below. His questions are in bold.
JE: Larry Jr. moved to the Hawks in the offseason – how did that trade come about? How did he feel about the trade?
LN: I like the trade as he’s moved closer to Ohio — which means I can see my grandkids more often so that’s a good thing.
Larry had a great time and great success down at the New Orleans Pelicans, and they decided to move on. But the Hawks wanted him, and their team right now has a real nice core.
Larry has been welcomed here, and I think he’s going to be really successful because they have some nice young pieces that made him excited about the possibility of playing here.
JE: What role do you see Larry Jr. having on the team this year? Have you spoken to him about how the Hawks are shaping up?
LN: Larry is the type of player that is going to do a lot of the dirty work. He’s going to play defense, he’s going to block shots, rebound and make passes. Every team in the league loves to have a guy like that.
Larry has been working on his three-point shooting too, so hopefully he’s going to shoot more threes, because he’s not done that a real lot in his career so far.
He’s going to have a great year because he’s always going to give 100%, and anytime you give that amount of effort combined with the amount of talent he has, you’re going to have success.
I think there’s some excitement in Atlanta. I talk about health all the time, and they’ve got a couple of injuries right now. But they just had a game against New Orleans in which they played really hard and won.
This is another group of players who seem like they like each other, and they’re nice and young. With youth, there’s some small mistakes that happen, but they make up for it because they do like each other, and they play hard for each other. The Hawks are going to be just fine.
JE: Any insight into how Zaccharie Risacher looks? Has he got superstar potential?
LN: He’s young but man does he have potential. He does some nice things, and I’ve seen some of his shots where he’s just made nice moves and shot it off the glass. He’s going to be very good.
He’s going to mature and grow into that body, but he’ll be good this year which will help the team quite a bit because he has a lot of talent and they have a nice young core.
JE: There was offseason speculation regarding Trae Young’s future. Could you imagine the Hawks trading him? If they did, what return would they get for a player of his caliber?
LN: From what I’ve seen of Trae Young, he is such a great player.
I’m not a trading guy. I believe that Trae Young is having a great start to the season, and he’s running the team really well while also playing really well.
I would not even talk about trading Trae Young because I do not know how you would replace him. Who are you going to replace him with? He’s one of the best point guards in the whole league right now, so I would just let him keep doing what he’s doing with these young guys.
In my opinion, I would definitely not trade him away. There’s no realistic return you could get for Young which would make sense for the Hawks.
I’ve never heard it, but some people may talk bad about Young. But from what I’ve seen from him lately, he’s a wonderful player.