Will Bynum has long considered himself a coach. Even when he was a junior in high school, years before his NBA career took off.
The former Detroit The piston guard attended Chicago Crane High School and was a teammate of former Grizzlies guard Tony Allen. According to the story, Bynum moved in with Allen while he was in high school to make sure the latter he went to class and remained academically fit to play.
Throughout each stage of his career, Bynum said he has tried to help and uplift those around him. So it makes sense that Bynum, who spent six seasons with the Pistons from 2008-14, has dedicated his post-NBA career to training.
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Last year, Bynum, 37, founded The Grind Family, a skill academy for high school, college and professional basketball players. He is working with some notable clients, including Miami Heat rookie guard Kendrick Nunn (Oakland), Clippers guard Patrick Beverly, Cavaliers forward Alfonzo McKinnie and former Kentucky champion Tyler Ulis.
He is also working with an international player that the Pistons may be able to draw this October. 19-year-old French playmaker Killian Hayes, widely scheduled to be a top 10 pick this fall, has been training with Bynum since last summer.
Bynum has great potential than Hayes. As someone who has long played overseas and had an unorthodox path to the NBA, Bynum is uniquely qualified to help Hayes get to the next level.
“Some people take their careers and choose to be selfish with the information they get in the process,” Bynum said. “For me, I totally refuse to be that person because he is someone I always wanted to be in my life that I never had. I had to make mistakes and learn from my mistakes and kept growing. I would always get that information at the next person because I wouldn’t want him to go through the same thing that I went through. “
‘A basketball boy’
Three years after Joe Dumars stepped down as president of Pistons basketball operations in 2014, Independent Sports & Entertainment, a sports, media and entertainment management agency, hired him as president of its division of basketball.
ISE offers various services, including preliminary training. Dumars brought Bynum into the fold as a coach, continuing a relationship that began nearly a decade earlier. It was Dumars who gave Bynum his second and longest NBA stint.
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After being canceled in 2005 following a remarkable senior season at Georgia Tech, Bynum only played 15 games for Golden State in 2006. His next NBA shot came in 2008, when the Pistons added him to their summer league team after spending two seasons playing for Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Dumars therefore signed a multi-year contract with Bynum. He spent six seasons in Detroit, carving out a niche as a reserve point guard for candles. Of his 360 NBA games played, 338 were played in the Pistons uniform.
Bynum’s relationship with Dumars blossomed in the following years. Dumars’ son, former Michigan guard Jordan, is one of Bynum’s best friends.
“For Joe’s character, replacing what I thought of him as a player was everything to me,” said Bynum. “The little conversations, everything he taught me throughout his journey are things I carry with me every single day. This is what I was looking for when I was a kid without my realizing it, this is what I was looking for, this is what I needed, and this is what I am now for these guys here. ”
It was Dumars who introduced Bynum to Hayes. ISE hired Hayes’ agent, Yann Balikouzou, in July 2019 as director of international operations. Hayes is now represented by ISE and Bynum started coaching him last summer. Hayes continued to work with Bynum until March when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted their training program. Bynum hopes they will find a way to get back on the pitch before the draft.
“It was during pre-training camp,” Bynum said when they first met. “Jordan and Joe were telling me they had a guy from France who was young, 16 or 17, he was really, really good. I started watching the movie about him before he got to (Los Angeles), because we had been training in LA for the past two years. I started watching the movie about him and got feedback on what I saw in the movie. I have seen many good things. “
Hayes was born in Lakeland, Florida but grew up in Cholet, France, where his mother, Sandrine is from. Hayes’ father DeRon is a former Penn State champion who started playing for LNB Pro A, a French professional basketball league, when Hayes was just 1 year old.
At 16, Killian made his professional debut with the senior team of Cholet Basket in France. He stayed there for two years before signing with Ratiopharm Ulm, one of the best basketball clubs in Germany, last August.
As a 6-foot 5-tall left-handed point guard, Hayes has emerged as one of the best prospects in this year’s draft class. He has an advanced offensive repertoire for his age, already possessing strong footwork, cunning ball handling, and child’s play as a teenager.
A popular comparison for Hayes is James Harden, a left-handed guard who possesses similar size. Hayes’ background reminds Bynum of another all-time great: Kobe Bryant, also raised in Europe and born to a father who played professional basketball.
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“I love Killian,” Bynum said. “He’s a great guy, a basketball guy. He’s like, as for a basketball kid, I’d refer to Kobe Bryant, who grew up in Italy and is a pure basketball kid because his dad played basketball at the highest level. So the way he grew up to see it is a little different. So when I compare, mentally, the basketball side of growth, this is the foundation it comes from, a similar foundation that Kobe comes from.
“His mentality is different because he wants to be the best, and that’s the only thing he sees,” he continued. “Some children have something more they see because of the environment in which they grew up. So it’s a different dynamic with those kinds of kids. With a guy like that, I can see the development and improvement process a little easier thanks to his foundation. ”
With a 6-foot-8 wingspan, Hayes has above average height and length to defend the other point guards. While not considered a high-level athlete, he moves well and has the instinct to stay ahead of his opponents.
Bynum wants Hayes to connect and learn from Beverly and Allen, two of the NBA’s best defensive guards in recent years.
“His side footwork is really, really good,” Bynum said. “His hands are fast. And he has the patience to defend really, really good pace players in attack. ”
As a player who has spent a lot of time playing in Israel, China and Turkey, Bynum has a good understanding of how the NBA differs from international play. Hayes has the ideal skillset to take advantage of the improved spacing and higher level of athleticism that comes with the NBA game, he said.
The Pistons have the fifth best odds in this year’s draft, which should put them in a prime position to draft Hayes. Senior consultant Ed Stefanski has already said the organization intends to take the best player available, regardless of position.
“His pick and roll readings are really very good already, so he’s going to get better at that once he’s on a bigger and bigger pitch in America and the NBA,” Bynum said. “And it will be with more athletic players. It will be really good for him, he will get better. A lot of things that people don’t understand with the game and can’t see, I can see why I’ve played overseas. I was there. I can understand his mentality and what he is doing because I have been there. This is the beauty of doing what I’m doing. “
Contact Omari Sankofa II at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @Marisankof. More information on the Detroit Pistons and subscribe to our Pistons newsletter.
