No hoop? No problem – how Boston, other teams train in quarantine

The Boston Celtics and other teams have had to get increasingly creative to keep players in shape during the coronavirus shutdown.

How do you maintain conditioning for NBA basketball if you don’t have a hoop — never mind players to play against?

This is the problem for many teams around the league dealing with the coronavirus shutdown, and one Drew Hanlen, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum’s trainer, has been hearing from a lot of his NBA trainees, reports ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon.

The Duke product was the first to call him after the NBA suspended operations on March 11th, looking for guidance to stay in shape. Soon after, the popular fitness coach was inundated with similar requests as access to the spaces and equipment began to dry up.

With more than a week past after the NBA banned access to team training facilities, some franchises have begun providing players with fitness bands, pulleys and other equipment to use in their homes, while others have developed open-air fitness routines for those with the space to do them.

But many if not most players have no hoop to practice their shot with in their homes, making quarantine regimens sorely lacking in perhaps the most critical area of the game.

Houston Rockets senior vice president of basketball operations noted via Bontemps and MacMahon that the “tough part is finding a gym to shoot … [w]e’ve told them you don’t need to be playing. It’s just finding a place to get shots up and do your skill work.”

In response, trainers like Hanlen have introduced new approaches such as the Dallas Mavericks using their own app to create individualized workouts for players based on the equipment they have available.

Teams are also elevating existing approaches, like video breakdowns of opponents’ games, to better prepare players for an eventual postseason series, a common strategy of Hanlen.

But the lack of knowledge about the schedule is also providing other problems, such as timing the workouts to match a return to play.

“Most guys that are high-minute guys, at the conclusion of every season, they take four to six weeks off, and then they ramp up after that,” Hanlen offered. “So now, guys are dividing that by two.”

There is as of this moment no set schedule for the league to aim for a return, whether a continuation of the regular season occurs or not.

So, preparing players for NBA action with no team to practice with, no court to do it on, and often even no hoop at which to shoot is proving a significant challenge for teams around the league, Boston included.

But with a little ingenuity and a lot of luck, if we do see the NBA return this summer, it may be a better product than was put on the hardwood in the lockout-shortened 2011 season.

The fact that no parties were looking for a stoppage in the schedule, the increase in technologies and equipment should aid such plans, and help ease the league back into game shape much more quickly than in interrupted seasons of the past.

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