Mama, I’m a Champion

I did it.

We did it.

Every practice, every road trip, every second away from family, every emotion…

It. Was. All. Worth. It.

This is a feeling I hope you all get to experience one day.

A single moment where there is a tangible thing like a championship trophy that vindicates your struggle and commitment.

There’s nothing sweeter.

Let’s go over what I think got me to this point, some principles that carried me through the journey, and my biggest areas of growth this year.

Explaining these should be beneficial to you guys’ own journeys.

Here we go.

Why I Do This:

I got a lot a lot of encouraging messages after the championship and they all were very motivating, but this one took the cake.

Never in my life could I have imagined that what we are building here would be impactful enough for someone to want to have it be a part of them forever.

As someone who has made the decision to get a tattoo many a times, I know how heavy each decision truly is.

This was crazy.

A forever commitment to the journey, to the process, to choosing to live atypical.

Cheers to you my brother, I will continue to live atypical alongside you.

Basketball Ideas I’ve Been Experimenting With

Discovering Poise

My whole career I have been a player who plays really, really hard and aggressive. This often comes at the detriment of my pace, patience, and level-headedness on offense. When things would get stressful or if I was struggling, my default would be to play harder and tougher. This tendency would manifest itself into inconsistency due to trying to force something that the game was not giving me. An example would be if I missed my first two outside shots, I would sometimes predetermine that I was going to get to the rim the next play resulting in bad reads, forced drives, and a lot of missed layups.

This way of playing stems from a want to control the game and to control the outcome. I have always been a high level basketball mind and just an all-around generally smart player, but sometimes this over-aggressive, over-force, default would take over when I would face any sort of adversity on the court.

But… this second half of the season, something clicked for me.

I am not sure where it came from, a part of me wants to attribute these weekly newsletters to part of the change, but I started to be able to think through problems on the court.

When things got tough or complicated, I did not feel this craziness start to buzz inside of me.

There was a centered, cerebral feeling while I was playing. It felt as if no matter what was thrown at me, defensive schemes, bad calls from the referee, loud fans, physical defenders, anything, that I would calmly find a solution.

Reflecting on this feeling that I had especially in game 3 of the finals, what I was feeling was ‘poise’.

Poise is a feeling of ‘unshakeable-ness’ and dominion over both your environment and emotions. It is a complicated thing to explain, a clear thing to experience, and an obvious thing to watch.

I thought of the most poised players that I could think of in the NBA and Chris Paul was the guy who came to mind.

Watch below and see if you can pinpoint the visible poise that Chris Paul plays with:

It is his movements, his pace, his reads, everything looks in control, calculated and decisive. If he makes a fake or move, than it was for a clear reason and I bet he could tell you why both in the moment and afterwards. It’s not overthinking, but instead calculated thinking.

This switch from force to poise is what I attribute to my huge improvements in the second half of this season.

Reflect on your own game.

What are your defaults when things are not going your way?

Let me know in the comments and we can talk about it.

The Value of Play Making

This whole playoffs we absolutely shutdown teams on defense. Yes, we had a really solid defensive scheme with a fully bought in team, but I think there was also another huge factor to our lockdown defense that was not necessarily due to us.

The teams we were playing did not have enough playmakers.

It wasn’t that they had bad point guards, but they just did not have anyone else outside of their point guard that could organize, make decisions, and go make a play.

Old-school, traditional basketball preached clear positions on the floor. You had positions 1-5 with very little crossover between them in terms of responsibilities, location on the floor, and even skills. Centers were not expected to be able to dribble like guards and guards were not expected to be able to rebound like the center.

Today’s basketball could not be more far from this.

In today’s game multiple players are expected to be able playmake whether it be to maneuver a pick and roll, direct traffic from the post, push the ball in transition, or even conduct the offense. Narrowly defined roles are becoming less of thing. Yes, there are expectations of what you will provide every game (let’s say you are a lockdown defender, you better be that every night), but players are no longer pigeon-holed into those expectations. There is freedom from coaches and necessary confidence from players to be able to step outside of expectations and be a complete basketball player.

The teams we played this playoffs, Vitoria, Oliverense, and Porto all had solid point guards, but relied on them heavily to make all of the plays for their team which made it much easier to guard. We could put relentless pressure on the point guard, make him pass, and then deny the ball back to him. This put other players in that playmaking position and they were very uncomfortable.

All this to be said, playmaking as an auxiliary skill has become extremely valuable and almost essential.

The game is much more fluid. You need to be able to move and adapt with it.

How do you create opportunity for your team?

How do you respond when they take away your first read?

Can you do a wide variety of things on the court?

At the highest levels, you will be expected to be at least serviceable in every skill. The idea of a “specialist” is becoming obsolete because there are no true specialists in the game anymore. Just about every specialist in the NBA or Euroleague are still average in other areas.

With that being said, you can still have an elite level skill that is much stronger than your others, but it’s essential to not completely disregard the others.

What is the application for you guys?

In your workouts, prioritize your strengths to make them exceptionally strong, but spend time smoothing out the weak points in your game as well.

If I could put a percentage of attention you should give to both, I would say ~70% to your strengths and ~30% to your weaknesses. Beyond this, all of your training should prioritize developing yourself as a whole being, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It takes a complete human to be a complete basketball player.

Let’s prioritize complete.

Mindset Ideas I’ve Been Workshopping

Problem Solving Game Day

Our goal as an athlete is to be as consistently great as possible.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

The reality is that you will feel different before most games as well as in most games. Your emotions and experiences are not going to always be consistent, yet you are still expected and striving to be.

My solution that I have found to my own pregame emotional inconsistency is to have different techniques and strategies that bounce me into the ideal game mode. This can be mental techniques, reminders, physical exercises, shooting routines, there are a lot of options.

It is important to find out what works best for you.

For reference, here are 3 of my pregame rituals that bounce me into the correct frame of mind before a game:

1. Pre game journal

I am sure that you guys have seen me journal in my game day vlogs on YouTube (if you haven’t, then you should check them out…). The simple format I use is:

• 3 Game Keys For The Team

• 3 Game Keys For Myself

• Gratitude and Thought Dump

This ritual calms my racing mind down and allows me to get some thoughts out of my brain and onto paper. It also gives me clear objectives for the upcoming game which simplifies my job for myself. I usually do this 30 minutes before I leave for the game.

2. Pre game gummies

This one is a bit strange, but before every game I eat ¾ of a pack of gummies (only ¾ because I always give the last couple to my teammate Daniel). These give me that quick energy, glucose spark before I go out to warm up. It also settles my stomach a bit because I usually get that pregame uneasy stomach. By the end of the year, when I would eat the gummies it would almost send a signal to my brain that it was time to go. Weird, but I promise the gummies have some science behind them.

3. Rebounding for teammates

In my individual skill warm up before our team warm up, I always finish around 15 minutes before everyone else. I spend the last 10 minutes before we go to the team room simply rebounding for my teammates. I know a lot of players that expect managers and support staff to be the only ones rebounding. For me, I use it as part of my routine, almost a sign to myself that I am not above anyone. It also helps me get a feel for the ball and the rims. Again, your routines should mean something to YOU and help YOU get into that game mode. It does not have to make sense to everyone, but it has to make sense to you.

Have systems in place that combat the unpredictable emotions before your games.

The more we can cut short the wandering thought trails, the more we can center on the task at hand. Routines are a tangible tool to do so.

Expect unpredictable emotions.

Use tools to recenter your emotions.

Become more consistent.

Despite Of

I tried to think of what the mentality of our team was this year that made us so special.

Were we just unbelievably confident?

Did we really just not give a f*** and were just more talented?

Were we committed to the grind and hard workers?

Obviously, you cannot narrow down our whole team chemistry and mindset into a singular phrase or idea, but I think there is one aspect that became the most important come the finals.

We had what I call the ‘despite of’ mindset.

No matter what happened, what was against us, what other people thought, how we were playing, anything…

We decided we were going to win despite all of it.

People called us old and washed up.

We would have nights when we could make a shot.

We would have whole arenas, referee crews, and commentators wanting us to lose.

Guys had injuries.

Everybody was tired.

Guess what?

We decided we were going to win.

Despite of it all.

I could go player for player and single out a moment where they embodied this mindset. I have never been a part of a team that committed to an idea so adamantly as we did with this.

We refused to be denied.

It was a special thing to be a part of, and it is why we became champions.

Goosebumps just thinking about it.

Sunday YouTube Drop

Right in line with the energy of this newsletter, this week’s YouTube drops is dialed in on our championship mindset. I had my teammate, roommate, friend, and true brother, Terrell ‘TC’ Carter, on for a fun interview style video.

We talk about his overseas basketball journey and the mindset that propelled him to this point. More so, in this video you can feel in his voice what it takes to be a pro and get to this level.

I think this is a must-watch if you aspire to play high level basketball.

I really hope you guys enjoy and I promise the Finals Vlogs will come out this week!

Merch Update

I apologize for the delays. Between the championship and the last second trip to Italy for my friend’s wedding, I have been beyond busy. The website should be up and running by the end of the week and the pre-order will go live.

I appreciate all of your guys’ patience and am so excited to see how this goes. If you want to be the first notified when we drop the pre-order, fill out this little survey to be put on the list.

I’ll Leave You With This:

We did it.

Together.

We accomplished something historical.

I am beyond proud.

I am beyond grateful for you guys being alongside my journey and supporting me through it all.

Champs.

Now it’s time to have a championship level offseason….

Love y’all

Trey