Tom Hankins wasn’t expecting to be a head basketball coach at the professional level last year. He joined the Indiana Pacers in 2019 as an assistant player development coach and spent his first season with the team working alongside some younger players and enhancing their skills. When the 2020-21 NBA season started, he was in a similar role.

Then, a head coaching opportunity appeared for Hankins. It was with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the Pacers’ G League affiliate team. The Mad Ants admired Hankins’ ability to develop talent, and the front office was confident he was the right hire despite his lack of head coaching experience at the professional level.

“I didn’t expect it,” Hankins said of getting the opportunity to coach Fort Wayne. “I didn’t not expect it, either. I was happy to get into the NBA, happy to get into professional basketball. And then when the opportunity presented itself to me, I was super excited and wanted to jump in with both feet.”

Hankins’ prior experience in basketball was almost entirely at the collegiate level. He was an assistant coach at Oral Roberts University for 15 years before moving to Southern Illinois University. In 2015, the University of Central Oklahoma gave Hankins his first opportunity to be a head coach, and he was in charge of the Division II program for four seasons.

In the NCAA ranks, he honed his player development skills, so the Pacers asked him to do just that when he joined the organization a few seasons ago.

“I was always intrigued about coaching professional basketball, but the opportunities to get in did not work with my life at the time,” Hankins said. “The timing of this opportunity worked.”

During the 2019-20 campaign, Hankins worked closely with Naz Mitrou-Long and Brian Bowen, the Pacers two-way contract players. On top of that, he spent time helping Alize Johnson, Goga Bitadze, and Edmond Sumner grow, and all three of those guys ended up making positive contributions for their teams this season. Hankins unequivocally showcased his value in year one.

Then, even after a coaching change in Indiana, Hankins returned for a second season. He was in training camp with the Pacers to open this campaign and even sat behind the bench for a few home games early in the year. But all of that changed when he was named the head coach of the Mad Ants just a few weeks after the season opened.

“I’m extremely excited,” Hankins said after being named as Fort Wayne’s head coach.

The G League is perfect for a coach like him — a leader with the model blend of player development capabilities and strategic brilliance. Those skills allow Hankins to run the Mad Ants in the ideal way — he can set his team up for victories while simultaneously expanding his player’s skillsets in a manner that could end up helping the Pacers should his players get an NBA call-up.

Those were Hankins’ tasks this season, anyway: get wins and develop talent that could help the Pacers. One request Indiana brass had for Hankins was to run Pacers’ Head Coach Nate Bjorkgren’s system with the Mad Ants. That way, if any Fort Wayne players got an NBA contract, they would be more prepared to help the pro team.

“I talked with Nate (Bjorkgren) and Kevin (Pritchard, the Pacers President of Basketball Operations) and Chad (Buchanan, Pacers General Manager), they wanted us to do the same thing that they did so the young guys can learn that system,” Hankins said.

“Offensively, we were very similar... I liked it.” he added.

That strategy, and Hankins’ coaching, paid off quickly for Indiana. Oshae Brissett, the Mad Ants stand out player, received a call-up to play for the Pacers down the stretch this season, and he shined for the blue and gold. Brissett averaged 10.9 points and 5.5 rebounds in the NBA across 21 appearances, including 16 starts. He fit right in with the Pacers, and his knowledge of the team’s strategy that he acquired with Fort Wayne helped him start off on a strong foot.

“His defensive instincts are off the charts,” Hankins noted of Brissett. Hankins knew after just a few practices that the Syracuse product was going to be his best player during the G League bubble, which took place in Orlando, Florida earlier this year.

The bubble environment added challenges to Hankins’ first season as a professional head coach. COVID protocols meant that players and coaches were mostly stuck in their hotel rooms, so bonding was difficult. The temperature outside was scorching hot, but the team meeting room was typically freezing cold. Some aspects of the bubble did not lend well to team growth.

To make matters worse, the Mad Ants dealt with numerous injuries. Cassius Stanley, a Pacers’ wing on a two-way contract, missed time with a foot injury. Former Pacers guard Naz Mitrou-Long was out for a few games with knee issues. Amida Brimah, who ended the 2020-21 season with Indiana, missed five games due to visa issues. Fort Wayne scarcely had their whole team.

Only two players, Brian Bowen II and Daxter Miles Jr, played in all 15 games for the Mad Ants this season. Injuries dramatically limited the ceiling of the roster.

That said, once Fort Wayne got rolling, they were one of the better teams in the bubble. They started off a weak 1-5, but closed the season 5-4. Brimah joining the team was a big factor in the turnaround, as he helped stabilize the Mad Ants on defense. The University of Connecticut product worked with Hankins in the prior summer as he rehabbed from an injury, so Brimah and his coach had a preexisting relationship.

“I was able to work with Tom Hankins all summer. I was able to work out with him. He helped me a lot too this summer just getting back up to speed,” Brimah said on the Mad Ants official podcast.

But the biggest factor in the Mad Ants turnaround? Hankins’ coaching. He altered the team’s defensive scheme midway through the season and saw tons of success. Fort Wayne was near the bottom of the G League in defensive rating after their poor start, but they finished the season with the third ranked defense thanks to some adjustments from Hankins.

“The adjustment was not pressuring everybody and backing off of non-shooters,” Hankins detailed.

It worked, and it almost got Fort Wayne into the postseason. The Mad Ants finished just two wins short of the playoffs, but the team’s record doesn’t tell their story effectively. Seven of their nine losses were by five points or fewer — the Mad Ants were in every game and were just a few possessions away from being near the top of the league.

Hankins nearly dug his team out of a deep hole. But despite falling just short, he did a first-class job with the Mad Ants in his first season as a professional head coach. His roles were to develop talent and to win games, which both took place and then some after a rocky start.

The best evidence of Hankins’ development capabilities can be found on the Pacers, actually. For the final month of the NBA season, Brissett was a crucial part of multiple Pacer wins. Stanley received a few rotation minutes near the end of Indiana’s campaign thanks to a bevy of injuries, and he provided quality playing time for the team when they desperately needed it. Brimah earned a two-way deal with the Pacers and even cracked the rotation for one appearance. All three of those guys grew under Hankins and had a noticeable impact on the Pacers season.

Without Tom Hankins, the Indiana Pacers would have had a worse season. It’s that simple. The Fort Wayne Mad Ants would have had a worse season without Hankins, too. He proved his worth in his first year as a professional head coach, and if he sticks around for future seasons, he could be an asset within the Pacers organization for years to come.