Transitioning to the Offseason

A lot has happened since I won my first finals...

Trevor’s wedding, moved back home to Washington, settled into a new house, Atypical merch drop, and programmed out my offseason training.

Content and this newsletter have taken a bit of a back seat for these past two weeks and that is okay.

I have to remind myself that the Atypical brand is nothing without my own prioritization on my development as a human and basketball player.

We can’t walk this journey together if I am myself am not walking.

You guys hold me accountable.

It is a beautiful thing.

The offseason.

It’s all I am preparing for and it’s all that is on my mind right now.

Give me 10 minutes to share my offseason thoughts and processes and I think it will help your own offseason plan/goals.

Why I Do This:

If you have been following the journey, then you can probably agree the last year my evolution as player and basketball mind has been tangible. It’s a great feeling when people acknowledge and can feel the growth. It is an even greater feeling when they feel my growth impacting the youth of their country.

An absolutely wild development of the brand.

Real impact.

If all I ever did was play the game a basketball, my life would be a waste. I am not here for glory and accolades.

The passion is to inspire and motivate.

I want to usher in the next generation of athletes to experience the same growth I have from this game.

We are taking steps.

One day at a time.

Basketball Ideas I’ve Been Experimenting With

The Bell Curve

I have hit on this concept before in this newsletter, but it seems important to bring it up again right before the offseason.

Below is a bell curve.

The beauty of a bell curve is that we can choose what the axises are. This allows us to apply it to a large variety of things especially as athletes.

Here are two clear circumstances where it can be applied (pay attention to what the axises are):

1. Offseason Training Program (X-Axis [time], Y-Axis [workload])

When structuring our offseason program we can apply the curve in terms of overall workload. We start the offseason slow with lower intensity (block 1—1-2 weeks). As we progress our workload capacity, our training becomes more intense and closer to max outputs (block 2— 4 weeks). Then as the offseason comes to a close and the preseason approaches, we taper off our workload so that we are not beat down before the season (block 3— 1-2 weeks). Take a look at my rough outline of my offseason training to get a better understanding:

This will allow us to progress our workload without causing serious damage to our body through overtraining and introducing too much too quickly. In an upcoming YouTube video, I will explain more my rationale behind these training blocks, the timing, the diet, the type of workouts, ect., but in the meantime try to implement this idea of a gradual build up to max intensity and a cool down after (the bell curve).

2. Individual Workouts (X-Axis [time], Y-Axis [intensity])

The inexperienced hooper gets to the gym and goes really hard right away or never get to the level of intensity needed to improve. The atypical hooper (see what I did there haha) does a proper warm up in order to be ready to train at peak intensity, maintains that intensity for a predetermined amount of time or repetitions, then tapers off their intensity in order to let their body cool down. One has a principle guiding their work. The other is just hoping the work will translate.

For example, most of my basketball workouts are structured with a ball-handling and dynamic warmup to begin, a timed-gamelike segment, and ended with a shooting cooldown (ramp up, push my capabilities, cool down).

I apologize if the bell curve explanation got a little dense, but trust me when I say: applying this concept to your basketball development will not only save your body, but also accelerate your improvement.

Be more conscious of what you are doing and why you are doing it.

We will dive more into this throughout the offseason.

Play Off Your Shot

Basketball players love to dribble.

Dribbling makes you feel that you are doing something.

Dribbling makes you feel that you are in control.

Basketball players love to dribble and do nothing.

Basketball players love to dribble out of control.

Unless your role on the team is to bring the ball up and facilitate the offense, my simple advice is to dribble less.

My coach this year had this term called a “pee-dribble”. This was any dribble made while staying in the circumference of where you could spin and pee hahahhaha.

His goal was for us to get rid of all our “pee-dribbles”. The idea was funny, but the application was to remove dribbles that did nothing, slowed down decision making, and did not help create an advantage.

Removing this habit forced everyone to consider their options before they caught the ball, almost a “pre-decision” to the actual closeout decision. Of course, you needed to be able to adjust your last second reads, but what I found is that a lot of the time the answer was to just shoot the ball.

Shooting the ball only became the most common solution once I made the decision that a catch-and-shoot 3 was the best shot I could get. This decision is what drives Villanova’s “Catch to Shoot” Philosophy:

If this philosophy is new to you, my first advice is to try it the next time you are playing live basketball. Think shot first, and once that is taken away, then explore your other options, but only when it is completely taken away.

When I play with this “Catch to Shoot” mentality, my game completely opens up. It forces defenders to close out harder making my fakes and drives much more dangerous.

You will feel like you have way more room on the court because you are driving past defenders and not into them.

Introducing this philosophy also gave me an instant confidence boost simply because of the recognition that my catch and shoot is a good shot. It takes away hesitation and doubt.

If you are open, shoot, and shoot it with conviction.

Experiment with it and let me know how your game feels after.

Mindset Ideas I’ve Been Workshopping

Price of Admission

I want you guys to watch this quick interview clip with current high-level overseas pro and one of my friends in this pro basketball world, Andrew Andrews.

lookhere.playnogamespod

View more on Instagram

What Drew is saying here is that we overuse the term ‘Mamba Mentality’ for actions that are basic work ethic. It’s not different to work out every day in the morning, it is expected. We should not expect praise for the work that must be done to achieve our lofty goals. If we say ‘x’ is our goal (let’s use pro basketball as ‘x’), then we have to do what is required to make that a reality.

This expectation of praise for the bare minimum requirement to reach your goals does not help your development.

We need to be honest with ourselves.

Are we willing to really do what it takes to reach our goals?

If the answer is no, then the goal needs to change.

If the answer is yes, then do it.

It is just work.

It is all apart of the journey towards greatness.

The journey is long and tiresome.

It’s not as bad when we walk it together.

I am right here with you all, step after step.

Priorities

The offseason is a good time to outline your priorities. Be explicit.

What things are important to you?

Rank them.

Now that you have your rankings, you can structure your offseason (summer) accordingly. The key is to be honest about what is most important to you. If you are not, then you will have an inner struggle all summer.

I just came off of an incredibly long season.

My priority this offseason is to maintain my love for basketball. Unique priority, yes, but this is my first season in awhile where I ended the season still motivated with basketball and not burnt out.

I need to maintain it.

Keeping this priority in mind, I structured my offseason plan to align with that goal. This is why I took 2 weeks completely off from basketball after the season. Being away from it, made me want to get back into it even more so (a classic absence makes the heart go fonder type thing).

I also programmed in some open gyms with a younger group of hoopers, mainly college guys.

Why?

Because being around motivated and hungry players that are eager to get their basketball journey started inspires me. It takes me back to that place that I was at in college. It lights me up…

Again, with my season being much longer than normal and my summer being shorter, time with family is a big priority as well. I was not able to see my parents or sister for nearly 10 and a half months. If there are family events this summer, then I have already made the commitment to work my training schedule around them. Family first this summer, and sadly that has not always been how I approached my offseasons.

These are examples of clear priorities.

I cannot tell you what yours are or should be. I can only speak for myself, but I encourage you to write yours down.

Be clear, crystal clear.

And do not waiver on your commitment to them.

I promise you will end this offseason happier if you do this.

Sunday YouTube Drop

The last video about this last season.

A final bow on the year.

Let me explain how this summer is going to work in terms of YouTube content…

There will be a weekly vlog every Sunday covering all my training, lifestyle, diet, family, literally everything. They will be structured in the same way these newsletters are: me navigating through different ideas and topics as a pro. You can expect the Sunday vlogs to be longer and jam-packed with lots of good information that you can use throughout your training.

On Thursdays you can expect some sort of more evergreen style content drop. I am talking, workout with me videos, 1v1’s, live 5v5 runs, what’s in my bag, move breakdowns, things of this nature.

I hope you are excited for what is to come this summer as well as this next season.

You guys will be the first to get updated on my plans for next year.

You all are truly the inner circle…

The First Ever Atypical Merch Pre-Order!

Thank you guys for such a successful first merch launch! We had over 80 orders and over 100 shirts purchased. I cannot show my appreciation enough with how this help the channel progress. It’s going to be a game changer in terms of increasing the quality of the content.

As for the actual pre-order, the shirts are now in production in Lisbon, Portugal at my friend and teammate, Hugo Silva, family’s manufacturing company. He thinks it will take 2 weeks to get them all produced. After they are produced, I will let you guys know. For the EU orders, they should be shipped and in your hands 5-7 days after production and for the US orders around 10-14 days.

I apologize for the long timeline, but I really chose to do this drop the hard way in hopes of learning the ins and outs of making a product so I can offer even better things to you guys down the road.

Thank you again for being understanding and for supporting me and the channel.

I’ll Leave You With This:

There is a lot of work ahead of us this summer.

I am excited for it.

I am excited to take you guys with me for it.

Taking strides is fun.

Becoming more is empowering.

Choosing excellence with like-minded people is what this Atypical Life is all about.