Former G League Strength & Conditioning Coach sharing industry’s trade secrets
When Sauga was at the centre of the NBA basketball development universe and hosted the G League Showcase, Kevin Wilson printed out his resumes and took them to Paramount Fine Foods Centre.
“Here, I want to give you a copy of my resume,” Wilson told a Stockton Kings sport executive when the two finally met in-person. “And the look he gave me was just like, ‘What are you doing!?’ It was so condescending and it was so like ‘He’s up here. I’m down here.’ That’s how I felt. I remember that,” said Wilson on The Canadian Basketball Show.
Several years later, Wilson was recognized as the 2023-24 G League Strength & Conditioning Coach of the Year by the NBSCA (National Basketball Strength & Conditioning Association). He leveraged that accomplishment to become the Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, working alongside Luka and LeBron.
To Canadian hoopers, Wilson is a relatable figure – he played in the OCAA and OUA, and then started from the bottom of pro basketball’s totem pole. He now wants to ensure the next generation has more guidance and support than he had. He founded CBPN, Canadian Basketball Performance Network, and will be hosting its first-ever virtual conference for high school basketball players on Sunday, February 8th from 5-8 pm EST.
Athletes can register online here. Use the promo code “RaptorsRepublic” to get 50% off.
Wilson’s conference is essential when there’s a lot of noise out there: What you ought to be doing. What you ought not to be doing. Influencers, algorithms, group chats, and everything else all vying for players’ finite attention.
With NIL, the NCAA D1 hoop dream has become harder than ever to reach. D2, D3, Juco, even USPORTS now all serve as a stepping stone to getting there. And an even bigger arms race has ensued as anxiety to keep up with elite youth basketball’s Joneses has amped up. This has led to overworking out of fear someone else might take away a scholarship, paying an arm and a leg for “exposure,” or constantly worrying someone else might eat your food.
Wilson is only interested in providing the right information – along with the right questions to ask – to arm players and their families against heightened anxieties. The controllables will be the primary focus of the conference: sleep, nutrition, how to (and how often to) workout, how to properly care for your body and manage tendon pain. The boring but essential stuff.
On Sunday, February 8th, strength and conditioning expertise will be under one virtual umbrella. Fred Van Vleet’s off-season trainer, Mike Guevara, will go over traits that separate the pros, a topic relevant to young players as collegiate basketball is increasingly professionalized. Other experts from the CEBL (Tanner Care), WNBA (Sydney Glanville), and Canada Basketball (Garrett Blakey) will be speaking as well.
Featured Presenters
- Tanner Care, Director of Performance, Vancouver Bandits (CEBL)
- Aligning Practice Plans with Physical Preparation
- Garrett Blakey, Head Strength Coach, Canada Basketball
- Principles of Effective Strength Training
- Sydney Glanville, Assistant Strength Coach, Washington Mystics (WNBA)
- In-Season vs. Off-Season Strength Training
- Dr. Kevin Wilson, Founder of CBPN and former NBA Strength Coach
- Managing Tendon Pain
- Mike Guevara, Private NBA Performance Coach
- Traits That Separate The Pros
The post Former G League Strength & Conditioning Coach sharing industry’s trade secrets first appeared on Raptors Republic.