Brandon Jennings Offseason Workouts

Article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Bucks PG Brandon Jennings and his offseason workouts:

"I'm just getting back to the basics of basketball," said Jennings, who worked out regularly at the team's training facility before the NBA lockout was imposed July 1. "Just working on my fundamentals. Getting set back last year with the injury made me have a different approach to the game. It's not (taken for) granted.

"Next year will be my third year and I need to establish myself as one of the best point guards and one of the best players in the game. It's just trying to get better and better every day. Working with Scott Skiles (before the lockout), getting in the weight room, dedicating the summer to strictly basketball. It's going to be my third year, so it's time to become an all-star."

Shortly before the lockout was imposed, Jennings was asked if he had been working harder than he normally would at that time of the year.

"I haven't worked this hard since I was 18," said Jennings who will turn 22 in September.

Skiles praised the work Jennings put in at the team's training facility before the lockout.

"Brandon has always been a hard worker, to a large part because he loves to be in the gym," said Skiles. "He was working out like it was September . . . very serious and very focused."

Since Jennings can no longer work with the coaches, it's now on him to continue with the workout program that was provided by the coaches.

Jennings wasn't kidding when he said he was getting back to the basics both in his pre-lockout workouts - mainly with assistant coach Bill Peterson, who was also impressed with the positive daily work habits Jennings brought to the gym - and on his summer "to-do" list.

The left-handed Jennings has worked on improving his right hand since he came into the league, and that mission continues - dribbling and passing with his right hand as well as taking contact around the basket and finishing with his right hand.

He has also worked on other very basic things such as catching the ball with two hands, his foot work and balance and his hand-eye coordination.

The Bucks would also like Jennings to tighten up his shot and shoot the ball with a more consistent form.

Jennings has a tendency to shoot off-balance sometimes or from different spots on his body. The Bucks want Jennings to improve at getting the ball in his shooting pocket - the starting point of his shot - staying balanced, and releasing the shot from the same spot on his body every time.

"We don't feel like there's anything wrong with his shot or anything he needs to really correct other than just shooting the same shot all the time," said Skiles. "Brandon has a lot of ability and a lot of talent and it just needs to revolve a little bit more around tightening up his fundamentals.

"There's no magic dust to any of this. If you have some level of talent, which he clearly does, and then if you have the work ethic to go with it, usually you get better. He's always been kind of a gym-rat guy and so it's not a whole lot different other than there's a real hungriness to him."

Summer Two-A-Days help Rose & Friends Turn Potential Into Polish

LOS ANGELES -- St. Monica High School sits near the corner of Lincoln Blvd. and Washington Ave. in Santa Monica, an intersection of potential and stardom. There is nothing inherently impressive about the St. Monica basketball gym -- "It's pretty small," said trainer Rob McClanaghan, "and a little grimy" -- except for the NBA players who walked through the doors last summer and kept coming back.

Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love arrived at St. Monica last May, full of promise, but still in need of polish. They had just finished their second season in the pros. Rose made the All-Star team. Westbrook wowed in the playoffs. Love was not even a full-time starter yet.

They worked out six days a week at St. Monica, McClanaghan putting them through full-court and half-court game simulations, peppering them with hypothetical questions: "How good do you want to be? You want to be an All-Star? You want to be an MVP? You want to be a champion, or lose in the conference finals?" McClanaghan's assistant was a 3-foot black football pad he used to punish the players so they would not forget what it feels like to rush into a power forward.

The group trained twice a day, once at 9 a.m. and again at 6 p.m., in their white T-shirts and practice shorts. Sometimes they came straight from photo shoots still wearing makeup. When McClanaghan tried to give them one Sunday evening off, they showed up anyway. When other NBA players stopped by and went half-speed, the regulars told them to stick with the program or drop it. "The intensity was unbelievable," McClanaghan said. "Russell would do something great and you could see Derrick and Kevin telling themselves they would do even better. It became their gym."

As the summer wore on and word spread, coaches in Southern California went to St. Monica just to watch. Former Lakers general manager Jerry West made an appearance. What they witnessed were three young players preparing each other to take one simultaneous leap into the elite. "We put so much pressure on those workouts," Rose said. "You felt like you couldn't miss a shot in there."

While Love and Westbrook had their own summer to-do lists, Rose built a jumper almost from scratch. A transcendent driver, Rose rarely used to take outside shots because he could easily race to the rim, with his Iversonian crossover. But as opposing teams sagged off him, he found fewer driving lanes, and grew frustrated that he could not make defenses pay. He shot 26.7 percent from three-point range last season, and on the rare occasion that he let fly, his release was low and his arc flat. The ball invariably smacked the front of the rim. McClanaghan told him, "If you can just get to 39 or 40 percent, where guys have to respect you, it will be over."

McClanaghan lifted Rose's release point, gave him the mantra "no short shots" and made him hoist upward of 1,000 threes a day at St. Monica. Rose's practice percentage ticked up, from 60 to 68 to 72. It became clear that defenses were not going to sag off him anymore, but to take advantage of openings he had to throw himself into big men as often as he slithered around them. "I spent a lot of time getting hit by that pad and trying to finish off it," Rose said. By initiating contact instead of avoiding it, Rose has already attempted and made more free throws than he did all of last season.

He has also identified yet another way to expand his game. He plans to spend this summer developing post moves. He already knows the perfect workout partners and the ideal place.

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From cnnsi.com

Fakes

From an NBA Assistant Coach:

What I have found at this level is that players use every advantage they can find to be the best they can be. The art of faking is important to the point guard position as they have the ball in their hands a large percentage of the time. The best players in this league have mastered not only the eye fakes but also:

*the pass fake
*the head fake (as part of the shot fake)
*the foot fake (jab step)
*the voice fake (“use me, use me” — then they slip the screen)

Garnett's Work Ethic

LAS VEGAS - It's 8 a.m. in "Sin City." Many of the "what happens in Vegas . . ." tourists are either asleep or just getting to their hotels. As for Celtics new star forward Kevin Garnett, he's already up and working out on Labor Day.

Garnett is among more than 20 NBA players working out under the Abunassar Impact Basketball system at the Tarkanian Basketball Academy, but none may be taking it more seriously. For more than a week, the 10-time All-Star has been the first player to arrive for his six-day-a-week workouts. In fact, Garnett has been starting at 7 a.m. since arriving Aug. 27, and he began an hour later yesterday only because Joe Abunassar wanted his employees to have an extra hour of sleep on the holiday.

"I like my footprints to be the first in the sand," Garnett said.

Said Abunassar: "He's a [workout] freak and always has been. He likes to come in and get it done."

Abunassar has been working out Garnett for seven weeks this summer, the majority of the time in Los Angeles. The regimen includes about 90 minutes of weight training and 90 minutes of basketball drills and five-on-five scrimmages. While Celtics training camp doesn't begin until Sept. 30 in Rome, Garnett already seems to be in prime shape.

In one drill yesterday, Garnett showed how strong he is. Wearing a belt with a cable connected to it, Garnett was immovable as one man tried to yank him from the post with the cable and Abunassar tried unsuccessfully to steal the ball several times.

The 6-foot-11-inch, 253-pounder also sprinted while pulling a man with a resistance cable. After the drill, a sweat-drenched Garnett made the majority of his free throws while pumping himself up.

"C'mon Kevin. C'mon Kevin. C'mon Kevin," he said.

Garnett preferred not to talk much about his tough regimen. Abunassar said Garnett is private about it and doesn't like fanfare, and he could be the hardest worker of all the players Abunassar trains.

"He's so focused about getting ready," Abunassar said. "He's a leader by the way he is. That's why he's Kevin Garnett."

Celtics coach Doc Rivers would like his players to be in Boston for pre-training camp workouts by Sunday. According to Abunassar, Garnett is expected to arrive in Boston as early as tomorrow.

Celtics executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Garnett and guard Ray Allen have been calling their new teammates to get in early for voluntary workouts. According to Ainge, 8-10 Celtics have been working out, voluntarily, at the Waltham facility on a consistent basis. Ainge also wasn't surprised to hear Garnett has been working out hard.

"He's looking forward to this year," Ainge said. "Work ethic isn't something he's lacked."

Mike Miller Workout

NBA.com has a great feature on Mike Miller and his individual skill workouts. Miller is a career 40 % 3 point shooter over his 8 year career. This is a link to hear Miller talk about what he goes through in a normal workout.

http://www.nba.com/media/timberwolves/miller_workout_080804.MP3

Mike Trudell, who is a reporter for the Minnesota Timberwolves interviews Miller. This is really an excellent look into what a great NBA shooter workout looks like!

From Mike Trudell:

In talking to Miller, I learned a few interesting things:

1) He made 36-straight threes to conclude Monday's workout. That's decent.

2) The former Sixth Man and Rookie of the Year (you forgot about those awards - be honest) goes at game speed throughout his workout, and he shoots more than just stand-still jumpers. Try step backs, curls, bumps, one-dribble pull ups and more (game situation shooting, basically).

3) For his warm up, Miller must make 10 shots from seven spots on the floor, and can't miss more than four shots (or he starts over).

4) He is the opposite of happy if he has to go back to a spot.

5) There aren't many NBA players, let alone normal people, who could get through Miller's workout due to how many consecutive shots he has to make.

6) One of Miller's hardest drills is this: A three-point make is +1 and a miss -1, and he has to get to 50. So he could make 49 in a row, miss one and he'd need two straight makes to finish. Miss five, make five and you're at zero. Try that sometime with NBA threes ...