The Atlanta Hawks taunted each other mercilessly. “Jeopardy,” after all, can get intense.
Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce hosted a players-only “Jeopardy” game this month to reinforce offensive and defensive schemes. Four teams, four players each. The 43-year-old coach DJ’d, dropping tunes straight from Motown — to the dismay of his young team.
The dismay, maybe, of everyone but Jabari Parker.
It was there, in the midst of the trench warfare that is “Jeopardy,” where Parker and Pierce discovered their mutual love for Frankie Beverly, the 72-year-old founder of the soul group Maze.
”I have a brother [Pierce’s] age and my brother played his music around me,” Parker said Thursday. “So when it comes to Lloyd, that connection is real easy for me.”
Music has been the way the two connect, a bond forged through soul and R&B almost twice Parker’s age.
”He just likes the old-school vibe,” Pierce said. ”Who would have known that Jabari and I both like Frankie Beverly and Maze and that’s what we’re talking about?”
Parker, 24, signed a two-year, $13 million deal with the Hawks this offseason. The Chicago native started last season with the Bulls in what was supposed to be a festive homecoming. But it ended in a midseason trade to Washington.
With that in his rearview mirror, the former National High School Player of the Year at Simeon returned to the United Center on Thursday for the first time with his new team.
Parker misses living close to his family, a luxury he had for the first four-plus years of his career.
Still, he thoroughly enjoys Atlanta and his place with the Hawks, where he’ll be an important piece of Pierce’s rotation.
His adjustment wouldn’t have been as pristine, though, without the ardent support of his coach — and if not for Maze.
”When you can connect with a player, regardless of what it is, you can tap into him a little more,” Pierce said. “That’s what we’re trying to do. Tap into Jabari, help him grow, help him expand and see if we can get something out of him.”