illmatic99
formerly yuyuza1
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https://theundefeated.com/features/...ter-trainer-influencer/?addata=espn:nba:index
As with Meyers' trainer, why not put these dudes on the payroll?
11:00 a.m. | Brickley’s gym at Sky has become a New York City basketball landmark in just a few short months. Roughly 10 to 15 NBA players, he said, live in the building during the offseason. It’s easier in terms of scheduling. They know where he is. He knows where they are. Meeting him at the gym this morning is one of those residents, Portland Trail Blazers star shooting guard (and birthday boy) C.J. McCollum.
The fifth-year man out of Lehigh University was referred to Brickley through several people, including Chris Bernard, then the Knicks’ vice president of player development and now senior vice president of athlete relations at The Players’ Tribune. But McCollum’s introduction to Brickley, fittingly, was via Instagram. There’s a trust factor, along with a level of commitment from Brickley, that endears McCollum to the influencer. McCollum’s game improved last season, after their rookie offseason, with increases in field goal percentage (44.8 percent to 48 percent), free-throw percentage (82.7 percent to a league leading 91.2 percent) and points per game (20.8 to 23.0). They’re in their second summer together. If he finishes more efficiently in the paint and passing out of the pick-and-roll sees an improvement this season, McCollum will credit this summer’s marathon sessions with Brickley.
C.J. McCollum goes through a session with Brickley.
COURTESY OF CHRIS BRICKLEY
Brickley, as he does with every player he spends time with, watched tape of every offensive play from McCollum the season before and came to him with a fully prepared breakdown of his game. According to McCollum, a bond between a player and trainer is similar to the one between a man and his barber.
“From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day I’m in the f—ing gym. I do get tats. I do go shopping. But my life is in the gym.”
“You see guys go without haircuts because they don’t wanna cheat on their barber,” McCollum said with a laugh. “People are more faithful to their barbers than their friends, in some circumstances. With a trainer, you don’t wanna waste your time. You wanna get in and get out. You wanna work on stuff that’s gonna translate to gamelike situations.” It’s gamelike situations that Brickley and his colleague Kevin Harringtonsend McCollum through.
But it’s not just the sophisticated drills. Music, in particular hip-hop, has always been a major part of who Brickley is. He can’t have a workout without it. McCollum requests J. Cole, so Brickley obliges with “Dollar & A Dream III” and “Born Sinner,” infusing the gym with energy. The two run through a gantlet: elbow jumpers, baseline-to-baseline layups, coming off screens into free-throw line jumpers, bouncing off contact into floaters. At one point, McCollum nails 41 of 50 3-pointers. Near the end of McCollum’s workout, even he’s wiped.
But as he grabs his shorts to catch his breath, McCollum gets a second wind. He’s no longer the only star in the gym. Anthony walks in — and yes, so does his hoodie. Thanks to an Instagram hashtag from Brickley, #HoodieMelo became the offseason’s most talked-about alter ego.
“We were just joking around in the gym one day when he told me to come up with something,” Brickley said later that afternoon. “We never knew it’d become [the cultural phenomenon] it is now.”
As with Meyers' trainer, why not put these dudes on the payroll?
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