How a Nets Shooting Coach Turned Ason into Jason

[Teletopez]

Bob Thate is a shooting coach who started working with the New Jersey Nets in 2004 at the request of then head coach Lawrence Frank. In the 2004-05 season, Thate worked with the Nets part-time, helping just Jason Collins and Nenad Krstic with their shots. The team hired him full-time the following season, but he still had just four pupils: Collins, Krstic, Bostjan Nachbar and Antoine Wright.

 

"In turns out, in the NBA, the ones that you work with are the ones that want to work with you," Thate says now. "So I was working for four guys."

 

Well, make it five. Since only a few players were occupying his time, Thate kept busy by shooting around with seven-year-old T.J. Kidd, who was often hanging around the gym. When he wasn't winning shooting bets with the son of the team's star point guard, Thate was teaching T.J. proper form. And the kid was a good pupil.

 

At one point, Thate told the elder Kidd that his seven year old son had better form than he did. And while Thate wasn't exactly well known, he wasn't afraid to dish out some advice to the future Hall of Famer.

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Great read.

[Universe]

Amazingly he actually helped Jason Collins too.

[Multi-Billionaire]

It still blew my mind away, he is 3rd on all time 3 pt makes... ahead of notorious sharpshooters the likes of Glen Rice, Larry Bird, Mark Price, John Stockton.

 

Definitely an accomplishment for someone who got tabbed as great player without a J. If someone would have told me 10-15 years ago Kidd would be 3rd all time, I'd say no way.