Coach Tatum reveals secret of Hawks' early success

Lessons learned on Justin Tatum's off-season world tour have primed the Illawarra Hawks coach for his first full season, so much so he now considers anything less than a NBL championship a failure.

It's been a steep learning curve for American Tatum, who was installed to his first professional head-coaching job after the Hawks sacked Jacob Jackomas on a 2-7 start to last season.

Back then, assistant-turned-interim coach Tatum was known for two things: a strong high-school coaching record in his home state of Missouri and fathering NBA superstar Jayson Tatum.

But the 45-year-old has since carved out his own reputation and was nominated for NBL coach of the year last season for inspiring a Hawks resurgence that ended one win short of a championship series berth.

Tatum has had to adjust to the rigours of professional basketball along the way and, a little more than a year after his promotion, he still thinks of himself as a newbie.

"I've learned a lot," Tatum told AAP, reflecting on his first year in the job.

"It went fast but I learned about the speed of the game, the adjustments that needed to be made.

"Just probably managing the game during certain times, when teams make runs, managing my timeouts and things like that.

"Also finding a way to navigate through the physicality of the plays and stuff that have been called. I'll get better at it but at the end of the day, I'm still one year in. I'm still learning."

Another learning curve came earlier this season when Tatum was fined $3000 for a post-match critique that implied match officials treated him differently from other coaches. Tatum is currently the NBL's only African-American coach.

"(The NBL) is more scrutinised or more publicised than high school because it's a professional league and things like that," he said.

"You definitely can't go in there and do a rant because clearly there are fines and you're going to be clickbait, or whatever the hell comes about."

But Tatum has been learning since before the season began, having shipped out to Boston to watch son Jayson win the NBA finals with the Celtics in game five at TD Garden this June.

That was followed by a trip to attend his progeny's second Olympics in Paris, though coach Steve Kerr controversially benched the younger Tatum on the USA's run to the gold medal.

Sitting in the stands, Tatum could not help but cast his mind to the other side of the world and the lessons he would take from Paris and Boston to Wollongong.

"Just the patience of the coaches over there and the way they communicate to the players," Tatum said.

"I only watch one (NBA) team play: the Celtics. But whoever they go against, I just try to watch the mannerisms of the coaches.

"They know their team, they play so many games that they can act differently when they need to.

"Me, I can't. I've got to find a way to be on an even keel or be a certain way to make sure my team doesn't go up and down."

In son Jayson and his teammates, Tatum saw the kind of unity he wanted on court at the Hawks.

"When Boston won the whole thing, they just went on a roll of everybody knowing their role, knowing what time it is and what they're going to do," he said.

"They didn't care about nothing individually anymore. The 82 (regular-season) games they played were over with and now it's about finding a way to get everybody on the same page.

"That's something that I want to insert into this group when we start being consistent and winning some games."

The Hawks are in the process of getting onto that same page, sitting second on the ladder with a 8-5 record past the halfway mark of the NBL season.

No team retained more players than Illawarra this season, with Americans Trey Kell and Darius Days proving shrewd additions to a playing group that made it to the final four last season.

"We're in a good situation. We're one of the top, if not in the top-two, teams in the league," Tatum said.

"Compared to where we were at last year, I think we're in a good spot."

Since he got off the plane in Australia and before a ball was bounced in NBL25, Tatum was confident in what the Hawks could achieve.

The only thing he will accept this season will be the ultimate success, a second championship banner for the city of Wollongong.

"From the jump, when we landed (it has been)," he said.

"The championship should be the only thing in our mind, not final four, not top six. Win the whole damn thing, otherwise it's a bust season."