The Basketball Strong Podcast

As a player, Joe Mantegna says he was the college basketball equivalent of Rudy. But even before his playing days at Ithaca College were over, the coaching seeds sown by his father, who’s in the Massachusetts Basketball Hall of Fame, had begun to germinate, and he soon found himself on the sidelines at Boston University and Lehigh University. But when he came to a fork in the road, he decided that...

When someone has been an athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach in the NBA, D-League (now the G League) and the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), you might assume they’ve worked in basketball forever. But in Zeshaun Mirza’s case, his professional journey began by jumping out of a plane. Signing up for the US Army out of high school, Zeshaun took an extra $300 a month to become a...

When NBA players want to extend their careers, they come to Dan Garner. He also works with athletes in professional hockey, MMA, and football, using a comprehensive testing system to gain a full, 360-degree physiological footprint for each individual. Once the lab results are in, Dan and his business partner, Cal State Fullerton muscle physiologist Dr. Andy Galpin, create a full nutrition, trainin...

In basketball as in life it pays to be both lucky and good. When he was studying for an exercise science degree at ASU, one of Keith D’Amelio’s professors assigned him an interview with an expert in human performance. Keith selected a member of the Phoenix Suns performance staff, who agreed to give him an internship the next school year if he could gain some basketball experience in the meantime....

Kasey Jo Orvidas holds a Ph. D. in Psychology and is a certified health and fitness coach, with her expertise being in mindset and health behavior change. She has transformed hundreds of lives (and minds) in her coaching career, while also being published in multiple peer-reviewed scientific journals for her research exploring the relationship between our mindset and our health and fitness behavio...

Sometimes coaches dream up the best basketball schemes in the most unlikely locations, like when Steve Kerr and Bruce Fraser plotted out the Golden State Warriors’ motion-driven system at an airport wine bar. In the case of Paul Westhead’s speed game - a devastating combo of continual fast break offense and pressing defense - it all came together when he coached Puerto Rico players during summers...

Tyler Leclerc still vividly remembers the day he decided to drop out of college to pursue basketball training. He was listening to a business professor who hadn’t ever run a company and realized that he could learn everything he needed in the real world. So he walked away from school and went all-in. An internship with Drew Hanlen and hours of diligent study, while working at a golf course, helped...

In the 1980s, it was the Boston Celtics who ruled the East, with a combination of front-line toughness and the unparalleled skill of Larry Bird. When Bill Walton joined the team and was finally able to put in a full injury-free season, Bird, McHale, and co made it to the top of the NBA mountain one last time. Dan Shaughnessy chronicled this era in his fascinating book Wish It Lasted Forever .  Be...

One of the roles TD played while the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach with the LA Lakers was to help guide players on nutrition practices. As TD has always said, "you can't out-train a bad diet". This is especially true in the off-season when players can find themselves spending 3-5 hours per day between on-court skill sessions, summer league games, weight room sessions, and s...

When Tim DiFrancesco was the S&C coach for the Lakers, he got to see Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Mentality firsthand. Before facing the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, Kobe was so tight that TD and the training staff could barely get him off the floor of the visitors’ locker room. Yet somehow he willed himself to push through his pain, get out in the layup line, and put up the kind of offens...

When Tony Dorado was growing up, his father - a first-generation immigrant from Mexico - loved all sports. This wasn’t lost on Tony or his older brothers, all of whom excelled on the court and the field. But Tony’s first sporting love was always basketball, so much so that he decided when he was in his early teens that he would one day become a coach.  Today, most people know Tony as Nike's w...

Growing up in a house with competitive sisters and parents who were both sporty and creative, perhaps it’s no surprise that Hannah O’Flynn excelled on the basketball court, the track, and the soccer field. Showing that she wouldn’t back down from the boys, either, Hannah mixed it up in recess football games and played on both men’s and women’s middle school teams. She then went from idolizing the...

Mitch Kupchak grew up in a different America with parents whose upbringing in the Great Depression instilled a strong work ethic but left little time for sports. But as Mitch grew into his 6-foot-10 frame, it soon became apparent that he was destined for something special on the hardwood. As his skills caught up with his size, several college coaches came calling, and it was a simple, honest pitch...

When he was 11 years old, Gabe DenBraber’s parents revealed some stunning news: he couldn’t play able-bodied sports anymore. Gabe was born with spina bifida, but played baseball for years. Then came two surgeries that compromised the use of his legs and with it, words that every parent would dread saying. Gabe grieved the loss of the game he loved and questioned his faith, but one day his Dad had...

When Danielle Viglione was 11, she boldly told her parents that she was going to run a marathon. They compromised on a half-marathon and were surprised when their determined daughter not only finished the 13.1-mile course, but crossed the line in second place. This was just one indicator of the fierce competitor that Danielle was becoming. It became even more apparent when she shattered California...

David Hollander’s love of basketball began when his father put up a hoop and poured a 12x12-foot blacktop court in the family’s backyard. It immediately became his sanctuary and sowed a seed that would eventually lead David to shape a new generation. While his brother was a high school record-setter, David jokes that the only high mark he set was in technical fouls. But he maintained a passion for...

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the LA Lakers looked like the heir apparent to Michael Jordan’s throne, with Shaq dominating in the post and Kobe Bryant coming into his own as the league’s emerging superstar. And when Jordan’s coach Phil Jackson took over, the final piece of the championship puzzle seemed to be in place. But in game 2 of the 2000 Finals, the Laker’s title run was jeopardized when...

In the 1980s the Boston Celtics ruled the East, with a combination of front-line toughness and the unparalleled skill of Larry Bird. When Bill Walton joined the team and was finally able to put in a full injury-free season, Bird, McHale, and co made it to the top of the NBA mountain one last time. Dan Shaughnessy chronicled this era in his fascinating book Wish It Lasted Forever .  In this mini-po...

When people talk about Canadian basketball players, they usually think of Steve Nash and Andrew Wiggins first. But there’s a new breed of ballers from the Great White North, and Tyler Ennis is one of the best. His father, Tony, is a legendary coach who basically invented AAU-style travel ball north of the border. Tyler’s parents moved the family south to St. Benedict's Preparatory School in N...

It can be tough for a coach to yell at you, and in our current culture, parents can get involved to try and tone things down a bit. But from his earliest days learning the game from his father all the way to the NBA, Steve Blake learned how to play the point guard position right by learning lessons in toughness and resilience from old school coaches who weren’t afraid to yell when necessary.  A pr...

To excel on the court, basketball players need to master individual skills like shooting, ball handling, and rebounding, as well as how to play offense and defense as a team. But to handle the demands of contact with opponents, jumping and landing, accelerating and decelerating, and changing direction, they need to bulletproof their bodies off the court. Recently, Basketball Strong co-host/former...

What would happen if a current NBA coach ran players until they threw up or fell over in pre-season training camp? How would today’s All-Stars react to a “no layups” policy that left them on the ground during drills? There’d be big trouble now, but back in the 90s, Pat Riley made New York Knicks practices look like Navy SEAL Hell Week, and opponents feared playing in Madison Square Garden.  This t...

Brooklyn Nets fans hoped to see recently acquired stopper Ben Simmons provide a similar level of defense in their series against the Boston Celtics. Not only was he unable to play, but Simmons also needed microdiscetomy surgery to treat a herniated disc.  We brought back former Lakers team physician and orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Dan Kharrazi.  On this episode, Dr. Kharrazi shared:  Why Simmons neede...

Growing up in Flagstaff, Arizona, Paul Fabritiz followed the example of his older volleyball-playing sister to increase his vertical jump. He also worked on his shooting and skills and became a college-level player. But every season, he seemed to suffer a major injury to his hands, wrists, or feet, and after playing at Mesa Community College and Northern Arizona University, Paul decided to focus h...

In another neck-and-neck NBA MVP race, Joel Embiid matched the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic every step of the way. And with James Harden coming to the 76ers in a late-season Ben Simmons trade, Philly’s fans had every reason to hope that this squad could take them back to the Allen Iverson and Dr. J glory days. But then Embiid suffered what is likely a torn UCL in his hand/thumb and took a Pascal S...