Tag: Nah’shon Hyland

A tragic house fire hasn’t kept Bones Hyland from chasing his NBA dreams

A look at the NBA prospect from VCU who has gone through tragedy in his young life.

Before the smoke filled his room, before he realized flames blocked the path to save his grandma, before he decided to jump and hope, before everything changed forever, Bones Hyland was watching Duke play Kansas in the NCAA Tournament on his laptop while talking to teammates on the phone.

This, they all thought, would be them someday.

This, he thought, is my future.

It was March 25, 2018. Nah’Shon — they called him “Bizzy Bones” or “Bones” because he’s always been so slender — was the top-rated basketball player his age in Delaware. He’d never had it easy but for once the future seemed assured. Coaches called to convince him to commit to them. Reporters wondered about his top schools. It was all there ahead of him.

Then, smoke. Thick, black clouds, billowing into the bedroom of his family’s home in Wilmington. He tried to get to his grandmother, Fay, and young cousins Maurice and Isaac Williams but couldn’t. He managed to get a window open. Neighbors told him to jump from the second story. He hesitated. He hated heights.

He had no choice. His life was in immediate danger. He went.

***

Maybe you want the story to pick up with Bones Hyland playing in the NCAA Tournament.

It should have.

But it doesn’t.

Hyland, a sophomore last season, led VCU in scoring at 19.5 points per game, won Atlantic-10 Player of the Year and pushed the Rams to a No. 10 seed and first-round meeting with Oregon. He viewed playing on that stage as a way to bookend a chapter of his story, bringing it full circle.

The team had traveled to Indiana, where the entire tournament would be held. In the hotel the day before the game, his mind went back, as it often did, to that night: Maurice, 11 months old, would be pronounced dead at the hospital. His grandmother succumbed two days later, having used her body to shield — and save — 3-week-old Isaac. Bones tore his patella when he landed, endangering his career and forcing him on the sidelines for the remainder of his season.

Those memories were never far.

But as he awaited the game what he mostly thought was this: The future he envisioned had arrived, despite it all, and he was ready.

“I ain’t going to lie though. I felt as though I was going to go for 40,” Hyland, unleashing his signature laugh, told For The Win recently. “I was going to go crazy, I ain’t even going to lie.”

Then, the news came that multiple people within the VCU program had tested positive for COVID-19. Oregon would automatically advance to the next round. Scouts viewed that matchup as the best game in the first round for evaluating draft prospects and within moments, it was gone.

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“I was just shocked,” said Hyland. “It just left me in tears. I had been waiting for that moment my whole life. For something to be taken away from you so fast, you’re just left in awe. Like, it’s so crazy. It was lots of tears. I’m a very passionate kid about the game and about the big moments and the big events that basketball hosts.”

Bones had no choice but to pick up and move on. He’d done it time after time. He knew how.

“With my background and all of the things I’ve been through, life experience, growing up in a tough environment, seeing that on a day to day basis with my own eyes, it made me who I am,” Hyland said. “That gave me extra grit. Just losing people from my childhood, the life tragedy I’ve been in, the house fire, everything all piled up.”

He’d hoped the tournament would introduce him to a broader audience and send his draft stock soaring. Robbed of that opportunity, he still decided to bet on himself and enter the draft. He is scheduled to take part in the NBA draft combine next week.

“I know what I’m about to do right now for this draft and these upcoming events and these workouts and the combine,” said Hyland, who champions himself in such a way that it is easy to believe him. “I ain’t even mad about what happened. I’m a very humble kid but I believe in myself so much and my work ethic, I know I’m about to shock the world.”

***

By now, you’re probably rooting for Bones because he’s incredibly affable and has been through so much. But what are his odds of making it in the NBA?

Going into the combine, Hyland is widely seen as a late first-round (where he was projected on our mock draft and another from USA TODAY’s Scott Gleeson) or early second-round pick at this point. But anyone who can shoot the ball the way Bones can has a legitimate chance to make an organization fall in love during pre-draft.

“You draft him because he is a shot creator, he is skilled, he can score, he can shoot it and he handles it. He is a below-the-rim finisher,” said an NBA executive, who spoke to For The Win on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of their team.

When talent evaluators and fans watch Hyland, the biggest question both may find themselves asking is: How the hell did he make that look so easy?

He’s a wild and daring player who revels in the showmanship of the game while playing with just the right blend of grace and confidence.

“It just comes from me playing all my life. Playground basketball. Rec ball,” he said. “Every single day, all day. If it’s one-on-one, I’m never going to back down from playing because I love the game so much. It’s a different level of passion for me.”

He also brings the exact same competitive intensity that he had in a YouTube video featuring Hyland that now has more than 3 million views. He was on the blacktop in Delaware’s Checkrock streetball league and he simply looked unbeatable. Out there, no one was ever less hindered by a double rim than he was.

Those lessons were crucial for Hyland to average 1.02 points per possession in isolation offense when facing his defender one-on-one as a sophomore, according to Synergy, which ranked him in the 85th percentile among all D-I players in 2020-21.

His impressive burst off the bounce and lethal first step was evident considering approximately 70 percent of his makes at the rim during his time at VCU were unassisted, per Bart Torvik. He is able to make up for any lack of explosiveness by masterfully changing speeds and squaring his shoulders whenever he is able to attack the basket.

“You can see the emotion in my game,” Hyland said. “I never back down from anybody. I don’t care what ranking or what name you have. I’m always going to bring my A-game.”

Bones makes highlight plays when it’s just him and his man matched up. But he knows that when he gets to the NBA, he is going to have to play off the ball more often than he did in college.

Luckily, perhaps the most translatable skill for Hyland is his shooting versatility. If anything, perhaps he didn’t get enough of a chance to play off-ball to shine as a movement shooter while at VCU because he was such a primary scoring option for the team.

Study him when he does not have the rock in his hands and you will watch him circumnavigate the floor, constantly sprinting around the perimeter and sometimes even swiftly across the baseline and to the corners until he is able to find an open look beyond the arc.

Because his range is laughably limitless, he eagerly calls for the pass even if he is far beyond the NBA 3-point line. Once the ball is delivered, he uses his quick release off the catch to fire away without hesitation and without even using a dribble.

Considering how far defenders have to guard Hyland out beyond the line, arguably no one in this draft class provides the gravity that he will bring to an NBA team as a floor spacer.

Hyland has an incredibly soft touch on his jumper. Even opposing defenders come away mystified by it. Watch how Dayton’s Jalen Crutcher admires what Bones can do as a shooter and you’ll see the respect he has earned:

Just like he sprints along the 3-point line, he is also able to use his speed on the fastbreak, which he says is his favorite tempo.

Hyland plays the game without fear and that becomes even more obvious when he in the open floor. If he is running the break, he is one of the few prospects who has the guts to ever consider stopping near the logo to pull up from deep, a move most wouldn’t even dare to try while playing NBA 2K.

“I love transition,” said Hyland. “That’s what makes the game fun. I love hearing the crowd screaming, yelling, and you just pull up from 30 feet deep. Boom! Bow! The ball goes in and it’s just like, ‘Yo, you just made the crowd go crazy.’ That’s been me my whole life.”

Hyland’s productivity in transition was staggering; he finished the season averaging 6.0 points per game in transition, per Synergy. That was the highest among all players who declared for the draft this year, ahead of projected first-rounders like Ayo Dosunmu (5.9 ppg) and Cameron Thomas (5.7 ppg).

On the flip side, sometimes he plays a bit too fast, and maybe the biggest red flag for Hyland as a prospect on offense is that he has been turnover-prone in the past. He has a ball handle that is shifty, which can be useful at times, but a bit too loose to play as a point guard right away in the NBA.

Opposing defenses knew what would happen when he was on the floor for VCU, so they threw the kitchen sink at him. He took 31.8 percent of the field goal attempts for his team last season, which was the highest rate among all players in his conference. When he is no longer the sole threat on offense, his turnover rate could see a natural reduction.

“The college level was congested. I was the focus. I was getting the box and one,” Hyland said. “The NBA will have much more open space. I know that my turnovers will be reduced for sure because there will be so much more open space and I can create, do me, get busy for sure.”

(via Dominic Samangy)

When it comes to creating for others, Hyland was at least respectable. If he is going to play on-ball, however, his assist rate will have to increase at the next level.

“He’s gotta be a point guard that you know is a scoring threat,” said one NBA scout, who spoke to For The Win on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of their team. “To me, that is his strongest point.”

Fortunately, there are plenty of signs that indicate such is more likely than not. Simon Gerszberg, a data analyst for a D-I college basketball team, is the founder and CEO of ShotQuality. This tool, used by several NCAA and NBA teams, helps calculate decision-making among players.

One of the measurements for playmaking is ShotQuality Assists, which removes the variable of whether or not a teammate made the shot and is instead weighted on the likelihood the attempt would typically go in.

Most of the time, typically with solid teammates who make their shots, the score ends up as a fairly close mirror to their actual assist numbers. Jared Butler, point guard for national champion Baylor, averaged 4.5 assists per game and his ShotQuality Assists result was identical.

Hyland, however, averaged 2 assists per game but his score on ShotQuality Assists indicates a figure of 2.5. Among all players who declared for the draft who averaged at least 2.0 assists per game, per our research, only three resulted in a larger disparity.

This suggests that when he is playing with professional teammates, who are able to hit their shots at a higher clip, his playmaking numbers could go up quite a bit. That is especially true when considering that when removing Hyland’s attempts, VCU shot just 30.7 percent from the 3-point line in 2020-21.

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

“I create so much pressure on the defense with my shot-creating ability that on a screen and roll, if it’s a short roll, I can just dump it to the big,” he said. “I can create so many options off that. When I am playing off the screen, I just know how to read how the big man is playing. So if he steps up, whether it’s a lob or a bounce pass or chest pass, whatever it takes, I can definitely make that play.”

His performance in the pick-and-roll suggests he is right. Teammates shot just 14-for-47 (29.8 percent) on pick and roll possessions when he passed to someone who was spotting up, according to Synergy, even though those were often uncontested attempts.

But on ball screens that ended with him passing to the roll man, VCU was far more successful. Teammates were 15-for-18 (83.3 percent) on these opportunities, thanks in large part due to the way opponents have to guard him as a shooter.

“I’m the type of player where if it’s coming down to the clutch and we are in the playoffs, they’re going to know that I can make that shot,” said Hyland. “If the superstar on my team is getting double teamed and I have to handle the ball, I’m going to make the right play. That’s the level of trust. The coach won’t be worried.”

Most already knew that Hyland was an elite shooter and he appears capable of developing into an above-average passer, too. His defense shows promise, as well.

He is one of just three college basketball players — and the only underclassman — who took at least ten 3-pointers per 100 possessions to also shoot at least 37.0 percent from beyond the arc while recording a steal percentage above 3.0 percent.

Even if he gets beat off the dribble, he has excellent recovery speed to contest a shot late. He uses his 6-foot-10 wingspan and stellar mobility to disrupt passing lanes to make crucial defensive stops for his team. On the season, per KenPom, VCU ended with the third-best steal percentage in the nation.

“Those are the types of plays you want to make,” said Hyland. “It gets the fans in the game. It gets your teammates pumped up.”

Hyland’s help defense and plus instincts for positioning make him an excellent fit for defensive rotations, where his length helps make him effective.

While it is hard to measure defensive impact for an individual player. one catch-all statistic often cited among executives is regularized adjusted plus-minus (RAPM). According to metrics from Jake Flancer, among all players who logged at least 600 minutes last season, Hyland finished third in Defensive RAPM. When sorting through just those who have declared for the draft, only projected lottery pick Franz Wagner ranked higher.

“I always want to take that challenge on,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I don’t like when players score on me. That is what makes me eager. I know I’m going to a professional league where mostly everybody can score. But that different level of grit that I have, I know that I am capable of playing really good defense.”

***

Hyland, who is currently working out in Atlanta as he prepares for the NBA draft, has put on seven pounds during the pre-draft process but will still rely on his skill and finesse as a pro.

“I have gotten way bigger. I’m getting way faster and quicker. My muscle twitch is getting faster. I’m getting more explosive. I’m rising up on dudes now. Everything is coming along,” said Hyland. “Right now, it’s the time to shine. I just feel it.”

Some may call him undersized but he has a very similar build to three-time Sixth Man of the Year and 20-year NBA veteran Jamal Crawford, who was similarly skinny and lengthy coming out of college.

“If he can get to 185 or 190, just get some good strength, that would help. He’s got a frame that could carry some weight and he’s got those long ass arms and he’s got good speed,” an NBA executive recently told For The Win. “Obviously, he is not the most athletic dude. But he’s long.”

As he continues interviewing with teams around the league, Hyland wants them to know that if they decide to take a chance on him, they would add someone who can change the entire mood of their locker room.

“What helps Bones is his joy for the game. His positive vibe on the court,” VCU head coach Mike Rhoades told Richmond.com. “I mean, people take that into account. That’s really important. He’s very competitive.”

If he does get selected, he would become the first player to get drafted out of VCU in more than a decade.

Bones, who has been a local celebrity in his hometown for several years now, would also be proudly representing Wilmington in the process. Since 2006, there have only been two players from Delaware (Donte DiVincenzo and Trevon Duval) to play in the NBA.

© Staff Photo by Jenna Miller

With that on his mind, he thinks back to his first game back after the fire. It took him six months to recover from his injury. His first event was, fittingly, a streetball tournament. Enveloped by the love from his city, he felt lifted.

“I saw the whole city out there watching me play,” said Hyland. “I felt like I was getting groovier, shiftier. I didn’t lose a beat. I just felt great out there. I didn’t feel any weird movement in my legs.”

The event was called Tressi Day, his signature catchphrase that was created by the Spanish words for “three” (tres) and “yes” (sí). (He and some of his friends, including his VCU teammate Ace Baldwin, have a variation of “Tressi” tattooed on their hands.)

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Hyland and his friends also used the name to start a popular dance move in Delaware, called the Tressi Bop, which inspired a song (that features Bones dancing) from a local rapper.

He came to make some music himself during the months after the fire when he could not return to basketball, experimenting on a friend’s in-home studio equipment. That creative outlet has always been just a hobby but you can find some of his songs by searching for “Bizzy Bones” on YouTube.

He hopes his legacy will play out on the court.

“I feel as though I’m the golden child,” Hyland said. “I’m the hood lottery ticket. It would be big for my city, that state. People don’t really know what Delaware is and that makes me mad sometimes. I want to put it on the map. How do you not know what the first state is?”

Hyland embraces the idea of being an inspiration for those who are growing up where he is from. He works with kids as a youth basketball coach when he can and he responds to their questions on Instagram as often as possible.

One of the best examples of how that love gets reciprocated, beyond young fans dancing the Tressi Bop in the stands or while watching on TV whenever he connects on a 3-pointer, is a video that Bones shared on Twitter back in 2019.

It was Christmas time and a young fan was given a customized jersey with Hyland’s nickname and number on the back. The gift nearly moved the child to tears as he hugged everyone in his family, holding the jersey close to his heart.

Bones knows that making it to the next level would be even more meaningful for those growing up on the same streets where he did.

“Being able to hear my name called on that night would be crazy,” said Hyland. “I don’t even know how to picture it. It would be a dream come true. I just can’t wait. I really have no words. I just wake up with a smile. I’m blessed to even be here.”

He’s learned by now, of course, that stories aren’t always clean. He hoped playing in NCAA Tournament would be a balm for the pain from the worst night of his life.

Then a virus struck, and it was over.

He fought through. He thought, as he so often does, of his grandmother.

His pain, he knows now, has not and will not go away. It may shift location or change shape but it is there and there is solace in that.

“I know my grandma, she’s proud of me. I just try to keep my head up,” said Hyland, allowing himself a moment to be somber. “I wouldn’t be in this position right now without her. She guided me through the steps. I know she’s smiling so I can’t even really be sad. It’s something sad. But I know my grandma is with me. I can feel her spirit.”

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