Tag: Irving Roland

Athletes both nationwide and globally have had to be resourceful, finding creative ways to train at home. For Carl Albert alum Irv Rolan, who’s spent the last 15 years traveling and training NBA players, he’s no exception. “I’m just like everybody else, messed up,” he said.

“It’s funny because most think the NBA players, they make millions of dollars so they automatically assume all these players have these fabulous indoor courts,” Roland said. “I really only know maybe two guys in the whole NBA that I know of that have their own gym at home. So, everybody’s pretty much in the same situation, just doing a bunch of dribbling drills out there.”

As creative as they’re getting to stay ready, Roland says the return to the season would be comparable to preseason. “I know the majority of the NBA has not shot a basketball since their last game over a month ago,” he said. “I saw a video of Serge Ibaka running laps down his hallway, which is only so long, you know, he’s going from the bathroom to the bedroom just running laps. So to ask these guys to go from that to ‘boom’, let’s try to revamp the season, it’s going to be really tough. You think about how sloppy the preseason can be sometimes with basketball and now we’re asking guys to go from not really working out, not touching a basketball and starting the regular season and the playoffs. So, it’s a really difficult time, guys are in a really tough space.”