Casey’s recent posts
- A Day in the Life of an NBA Player
- What is your New Year’s Resolution?
- NBA players that I’d pay to see
- The life of an NBA role player
- Defense Wins Games (and Championships)
- Close…but not close enough
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A Day in the Life of an NBA Player
Posted on 01/22 at 03:58 PM
I always wondered that when I was in high school and college dreaming of becoming a professional basketball player. I didn’t have any friends who knew anybody in the NBA, so my only window into that world was what I saw on TV. Shows like NBA Inside Stuff, Sportscenter, and MTV Cribs shaped my views on what I envisioned that life would be like. I would ask myself, “Could their lives really be that good?” Getting paid handsomely to play a game that I’ve played my entire life seemed incomprehensible when I was 18 years old. Now that I’m in my 6th year of pro ball (4th in the NBA)…it still seems weird.
A typical day for a player in the NBA world is a lot of fun. Not everyone lives the same lifestyles, however. What I do in my personal time is different than what Rudy Gay does. How I spend my money isn’t the same way that Pau Gasol spends his (It is none of my business, either). However, we all play the game of basketball together every day. Here’s some insight on what a day in the life of an NBA player is like from a basketball standpoint:
Non-GAMEDAY:
We practice almost every day that we don’t have a game. Practice begins at 11:00 a.m. each morning at the practice court in the FedExForum. Coach Iavaroni asks all the players to be “ready” to go by 10:45, just to make sure that practice starts on time. It is each player’s own responsibility to take care of any “treatment” procedures they need to heal injuries in the training room before practice starts. We have 2 physical therapist/trainers on staff full time whose sole jobs are to make sure our bodies are healthy and ready to play. Those who have injuries show up to the arena around 60-90 minutes before practice starts.
The other responsibility we have is weight training. Our Strength Coach, Mike Curtis, requires us to lift 2 times per week during the season (3-5 times during off season). If we don’t complete the required amount of lifts, we can be fined a certain amount of money each week. The weight room is located just down the hallway from our locker room. Our lifts usually take anywhere from 30-45 minutes and consist of a lot of total-body movements. We don’t just lay down on the bench press and put up 225 lbs. or go to the squat rack and lift 350 lbs. as many times as we can. Mike Curtis (and almost every other NBA trainer I’ve met) believes that in order to be a good basketball player, you must develop core strength (a.k.a. abs/lower back), conditioning, and all muscle groups. For example, some of our exercises require you to balance on one leg while doing a squat with a lightweight dumbbell (20 lbs). Some guys on our team do lift on a game day, but I am not one of those people. I want to save as much energy as I can for games.
When practice starts at 11, it usually begins with a film session. We watch the previous night’s game and breakdown our mistakes or our successful plays (mostly mistakes, though). After that, we stretch and practice begins. Practice ranges anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes, to two hours. We don’t always do the same things every day. The coaches decide what drills we do (ball handling drills, defensive drills, etc) and they demand that we give maximum effort all the time. After 3 or 4 different drills, we usually end practice with a 5-on-5 game to keep us conditioned. Sometimes, depending on the previous game, coach will ask the players who play the most minutes (Mike Miller and Pau Gasol) to sit out and rest their bodies. This gives them time to recover and it also gives the other players who don’t play as much a chance to stay fresh. Practice usually ends around 12:45 or 1 p.m. We ice our knees and ankles, shower, and go home for the day. Not bad work hours, huh?
GAMEDAY:
We have a short practice (it’s called “shootaround") at 10 a.m. on the arena’s main court. We watch film on the team we play and then walk through the plays that they like to run and how we will defend them. After that, we run our offensive plays to keep our minds fresh and then break up into two groups and shoot. Shootaround is about an hour long.
If a game is at 7 p.m., we are required to be in the arena by 5:30 that night. You can get there as early as you like, depending if you need to see a trainer about an injury or you want to use the weight room to get loose. I arrive at 5 p.m. Each player is assigned to an assistant coach who rebounds for them during their pre-game warm-up. I shoot with Juan Carlos Navarro at 5:30 p.m. before every game. After we are done, I go to the locker room to put on my game uniform and then we meet as a team 45 minutes before tip-off to go over our team strategy and to review the personnel of our opponent. The next thing you see is our team coming out of the tunnel to warm-up for the game. It’s that simple!
This is the life of an NBA player, day to day. When we are on the road, things are a little different, but mostly the routines are the same. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…this is the best job in the world! Wouldn’t you agree?
Posted on 01/22 at 03:58 PM
Hi Casey,
We miss you and your lovely wife in Bamberg
I hope you miss my soufflé and our restaurant. Trust me everybody wants you back. First of all I wish you all the best with the Grizzlies. Please send best regards from me and my Team to your family and don’t forget the best soufflé in the world and the min. 20 pts. the next day. See you Alex
Very informative. I’m surprised at how short non-game-day practices are. However, if you consider the 82 games starters may be playing I guess it makes sense. Nice brown suit, by the way. I’m sure you would rather be in blue and white and on the court. Stay positive. I’ll be watching and pulling for the Grizzlies and you in particular.
Mr. G.
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what up Casey your blog rocks I didn’t know you had writing skills too kid , see u soon for the all star break ,good luck on Saturday pull the trigger a dunk or two wouldn’t hurt, like the one you had here against the jazz the fast break was hot,you finished with a sick dunk can’t forget about that stay healthy see you soon.
Hello from Barcelona. Good blog Jacobsen but i don’t understand at all xd.I hope Memphis win more games… and i hope Rudy Gay learn to pass the ball.
Casey~ Whoop up on the Jazz tomorrow… good luck and play well. We’ll see you back in PC soon.
Hey Casey, I was at the game vs the Wizards a couple weeks ago, man that was pretty messed up what they did to you and Andre Brown, putting yall up on the jumbotron during the kissing thing lol, it even pissed me off, although it was pretty funny seeing yours and Andre’s reaction lol, I enjoy reading your blogs, keep up the good work!