???? Listen to the Podcast
???? Watch the Video
Drew Hanlen is one of the top NBA skills trainers in the world and the CEO of Pure Sweat Basketball, a training and coaching company. Drew has a long list of NBA clients, but some of the bigger names include Bradley Beal, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, Zach LaVine. Pure Sweat is more though than just NBA training – they also offer an online training app, virtual coaching courses, pro scout school, among other things.
In this episode, we talk with Drew about the past year of his life with COVID and the NBA shutdown, the positives and negatives of being an NBA player trainer, his training philosophy, his relationships with his clients, his work with Jason Tatum starting from a young age, and much more.
You can listen to the interview on our Youth Hoops Podcast, watch on our YouTube channel (or watch below), or continue reading below for a full transcript of the conversation. Also, if you missed our last podcast with Stephen Curry, you can check it out here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfaO34rWvpc&t=4s
Drew Hanlen Full Transcript Interview Below
[00:00 – 11:35]
Interviewer:
Well Drew, welcome to the youth hoops, pod. Appreciate you being here. It’s been trying to connect with you for a little while now through our mutual friend Alan Sigh. So, thanks for being here.
Drew Hanlen:
Yeah. No doubt. I appreciate your patience. I know that my, my schedule is crazy. I was telling my sister, my sister is getting married next summer. And she was like, Hey, I know you don’t need it. But where do you want me to save the date? And I was like, that’s the hardest question they ever get asked is what address to send stuff to because I’m on the move so much. So, I appreciate your patience. And I’m glad we’re able to do it today.
Interviewer:
Yeah, that’s awesome. So where are you now?
Drew Hanlen:
Well, I’m in Philadelphia right now. You know, but even during the COVID era that we’re in, you know, it makes traveling a lot harder, just because every time that I land, I have to quarantine and then get tested before I get on the court with guys. But I’ve still been basically spending a couple of weeks at a time with each one of my clients. And then we’re all meeting in LA November 8, two startup kind of the month-long offseason, if you will, where they’re going to be able to compete against each other and, and really ramp up so they can be ready whenever the NBA season does resume.
Interviewer:
Man, that’s awesome. What so where do you call home. I mean, you’re from St. Louis?
Drew Hanlen:
I’m from St. Louis Right now, I kind of call LA home. But I actually left all my stuff in LA on November 11. Last year, and I won’t get back until November 7 this year. So, literally four days shy of a year of being away from my stuff. I’ve got four bags, in my golf clubs that I just bring two of the bags in my golf clubs everywhere I go and have just been rotating. But yeah, I mean, it’s a, it’s definitely a part of the job that isn’t the most glamorous, you know, a lot of people see, you know, wheels up to this place and wheels up to that place. And they’re like, you know, I’m envious of all your travels and, and to be honest with you, I’m envious of all my friends that get time you know, on a couch or relaxing and, and being in one place where they can get a consistent schedule. So you know, as with anything, there’s always pros and cons of every job. And one of the cons of my job is that I am on the road 24 seven and don’t get call anywhere really home.
Interviewer:
Yeah, so over the last year, where have you been? I mean, I guess it’s probably a lot of places, but like, what was the reason you were traveling so much? Were you just hopping around visiting different clients? Or?
Drew:
Yeah. Definitely, so when the pandemic, you know, started, you know, I had already spent the first half the year just traveling around to all my clients, and you know, getting them ramped up. And then obviously, you had all-star break, you know, that was, you know, right then, and then right afterwards; I was doing a camp in Hawaii. And I was actually on my way to Philadelphia to see Joelle. And I remember I had a layover in Phoenix, and I landed in Phoenix and I had more missed face times and more miss text messages than I ever had when I landed. And, you know, 99% of the time when I’m flying I you know, get Wi Fi so I can, you know, stay connected. But I was always tired from, you know, the events we had back to back at our events in Hawaii. So, I was like, you know what, I’m just gonna rest up on the flight. And sure enough, when I land, they’re all like, Woody, where have you been? What are you doing? You’re always accessible. And I started calling back some of my players and like, hey, what now, you know, the NBA season had just got, you know, postponed. And they were wondering, how long do we have? So, you know, is it? Is it a two week thing where we stay in shape? Is it a month long thing where we take a week off? And then we start ramping up? Or is this going to be a mini offseason? And so you know, I didn’t have the answers. And for the first time ever, we couldn’t strategically go about a period of time.
Normally, we know the offseason is going to be you know, four months or two months, or whatever the period of time is depending on when they get knocked out in the postseason. And then we can say, okay, based on load management, we’re going to give you know, three weeks off, because the amount of minutes you played this season, then two weeks to get your body right. You know, get your cardio, get your weightlifting in and start prepping the body for encore work, and then we’re going to get you know, six weeks of on court work, then we’re going to take a week off, etc. We didn’t have an answer, because we didn’t know anything that was going on. We didn’t have a timetable. So, most of my guides I recommended based on what I was hearing that, you know, they take, you know, three weeks off, because we knew was gonna be a little bit longer than that, you know, then the public did, we were getting a little bit more information from the NBA. And so a lot of them took three weeks off, then started to slowly ramp up, then it got pushed back a little bit longer. So, then they started slowly ramping down a little bit. And then once we got note that you know that the bubble was going to happen. All those players started ramping up and started to get their cardio right, and then started to get their game right so that they were prepared once they got to the bubble.
Interviewer:
Gotcha! And who are the players you’re mostly working with these days?
Drew:
Oh, I’ve got a bunch of guys that I work with. The guys that, you know, been with me since you know, the college days or guys that I’ve been with for the last couple years. You got Jason Tatum and Brad Beal, who I’ve been with since they were both 13 years old. They’re both St. Louis guys like myself, work with Joel Embid, Zack Levine, Kelly gray, RJ Barrett, Meyers Leonard, I mean, the list goes on. But I work with a lot of guys, you know, its fun for me too because those are some of the guys that you know, are more of the, you know, maybe high profile. But you know, I also get to work with guys like shimmy OJ, who’s one of my favorite guys to work with.
Interviewer:
Shimmy is great, man. We ran his summer camp, I don’t know, two or three years ago, and the guy stayed afterwards and helped put away chairs.
Drew:
Yeah, just I mean, that’s the thing is like, you know, it’s funny because I almost feel bad when people start name dropping my clients, and they only want to name the guys that are, you know, all stars or all NBA type players. But the truth is, you know, I value the relationships with every one of my clients the exact same and so, you know, shimmy I’ve had since it’s pre-draft, I love working with him, you know, and even seeing him he jumped up his three point percentage jumped up to 37% this year, which was at 31 year before, seeing like a 6% growth for him is a huge win. And while you might not get the notoriety that you know, Jason Tatum does, when Jason Gino jumps up and becomes a second, you know, second team all NBA guy, development is development. And, you know, for me, seeing anybody get results is just a huge win. And so yeah, but I work with a lot of guys, and I’m not one of those guys that like, has a guy here for a week and has a guy there for a week, my guys are full time. So, they come to me during the offseason during the season and provide video breakdowns and, you know, post-game analysis and doing analytics for them. We’re making adjustments throughout the season, I’m traveling to them, so that we can get work and make tweaks and adjustments. So, that it can be at their best when they need to be at their best, which is a little bit different than most, you know, training player relationships where the player just works out with, you know, whoever’s convenient in the area that they want to spend time in group
Interviewer:
As we’re starting to get into kind of whom you work with. And obviously you’re listing. I mean some of the best players in the world right now. Let’s take Jason Tatum, for example. I look at Jason Tatum is just an elite offensive talent. You know, like, I mean, he appears to have just about every weapon he could need at his disposal. How do you approach player development with a player that is already so talented? Obviously, we all know you always have things to work on, you can always get better. But what Where does your approach look like with a guy like that?
Drew:
I’m going to take you back to the start. Jason’s 13 years old when I first started working with him, Brad Beal was like a big brother to him said, Hey, you got to work out with my little brother. And, you know, we started working out and the first week that we worked out all we did was we worked on the jab step. I broke down film. I showed him Michael. I showed him Coby. I showed him t Mac, I showed him all these guys. And we studied the jab and we worked on different jobs. We didn’t shoot a shot the first week. Now think about that as a 13 year old to have the discipline just show up every day and just work on the jab step. And then finally, I was like, you know maybe five days in I said, All right, now we’re ready to move on. He said, Man, thankfully, like you don’t know I’m waiting for all the moves. I’m seeing you do a Brad right after me was like now we’re ready for the jab wonderful Polo. He’s like, come on, man. Like, it’s got to be a joke. And I was like, Listen, we have time, we can develop year after year, give you one thing at a time, so that eventually your game is just kind of undestructible you don’t I mean, where you just can’t be picked apart. And so
Interviewer:
Yeah, lay that foundation.
Drew:
Yeah. And the next evolution for Jason is really driving through contact, you know, which is something that you know, as his body continues to mature and develop, you know, the he’ll get better at but just driving through contact. And then playmaking, which you saw in the postseason, he averaged, you know, six assists a game which was a huge step forward in that category, and then extending his range, he shot over 40% You know, he led the league inside set threes, but now if we make them more of a weapon from you know, four feet beyond the three point line, now they have to guard you differently. Now, when you’re attacking downhill more room for making plays more room for finishing, it just helps everything. So, he’s got a bunch of different areas that he can grow in and develop in the big ones that we’re working on this summer. Those three, you know, with basically, the first one just understands that if we can make shots consistently from 28 feet, then it’s going to make your drives easier, which is going to make your playmaking easier. And it’s also going to improve your finishing but then also if there is that contact, being able to stay on balance and play through contact instead of always trying to draw the file are always you know, kind of, you know, shooting a floater when you could get to the basket if you take one more power dribble into the guy shoulders. Yeah,
Interviewer:
Yeah. I will be in if I can follow up real quick. Brennan, I just quick follow up on that. How much agency does a guy again, we’ll use Jason Tatum for example, how much is he involved in the self-analysis of his game? For example, as a trainer myself, I’ve so many parents and kids who come to me and say, what do I need to work on? And I try to sometimes flip the script and say, well, what do you think you need to work on? Like you’re you play your own game? Is Jason or some of these guys you work with? Are they just as much kind of like, Hey, you know, Drew, I felt like I didn’t do this well, or I feel like I need to work on this area, or is it all you guiding them?
Drew:
It’s both. I mean, to be honest with you, the process that I use is I always use the analogy of a GPS, you know, it starts with the player telling me I want to get to here or me helping them say, hey, this is probably where you need to get to. So we basically together set kind of a destination. And then my job is to be able to efficiently and effectively get them there as quick as possible. And if they get off route, my job is to reroute them back on the path. Now saying that, I think it’s important that you rally the troops. And what rallying the troops means is not only as the player and the trainer on the same page, but also like last week I was with Brad Stevens and Danny Ainge, and we’re all talking about what does Jason need to do? What’s the next role that he’s going to be in? What changes you know, are they going to make systematically so that I can have Jason be the best version of himself for the Boston Celtics, as skills coaches, we have many different hats that we wear, sometimes we’re babysitting them, sometimes we’re therapists, sometimes we’re just a skills coach.
[11:35 – 25:00]
But regardless which hat we’re wearing, our number one job is to make sure that that player is happy off the court and successful on the court. And only way they can be successful on the court is if they’re providing value for their team. And I always say the number one skill that a player can have is their ability to impact their team’s chance of winning the game. And so I always make sure that I’m getting feedback from anybody that’s in that player’s ear, because what you don’t want is confusion. You know, I was telling somebody the other day; I’ve really picked up golf during the pandemic. And you know, at first I would watch my swing, and I would compare it to Tiger Woods swing, and I was like, Alright, if I can just do what Tiger does, I’m gonna be a great golfer. So, then I was like, looking, I was like, alright, I’m coming really steep on my swing. So, I was like, I need to shallow out the club. So I go on YouTube, and the first video is like, alright, once you get it to your backswing, all you have to do is let your hands fall down the wall, and then boom, you’re going to be able to have a good impact position. So, I was like, great, now I know what to do. And I was like, let me watch another video, I watched the other video, and they’re like, absolutely do not pull your hands down, open your hips. And if you open your hips, I was like, well shoot, now which one do I listen to. And then the third video said, hey, once you get here, bump your hips first then go through, and I’m like, alright, now I’ve got three different elite, golf swing coaches, tell me three different things. Now, I’m confused, you don’t want the player confused out there thinking about all these different things, they should work on all these things they should do. Ideally, what you do is have one strategic kind of focus and plan locked in on that get really good at that. And then as we talked about earlier, you just layer kind of, you know your game, so that when you get out there, you already know exactly what you’re able to do. You’re competent in doing those things, and then you can get those results.
Interviewer:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, I’ve got a couple of questions, and I definitely have a comment as well. So, you have a, you typically have a pretty good relationship with your players, coaches, GMs, and their staff.
Drew:
Yeah, I’m like, really close with all of them. I think it’s so important, especially at the NBA level. The NBA players have a little bit more freedom than they do at the younger levels. Like even in college, you know, I’ve got a good relationship with some of the college coaches. But college coaches have a little bit more authority over the players. You know, whereas the players in the NBA are the highest paid individuals, and they’re more valued than the coaches most of time. So, most of the time, the NBA is more of a player-led player-driven League, whereas in college, the coaches are kind of the figures and whatever they say goes. But I mean, ideally, doesn’t matter if I’m working with a high school player, you know, a high school coach, AAU coach, a college coach, NBA coach, first thing I do when a player reaches out to me is I try to reach out to the coach and kind of cross that bridge so that at least at the bare minimum, even if the coach says, You know what, I don’t want him work with another trainer. At least he knows I did everything I could to try to include him in the plan. And then when we kind of had that initial conversation, I also want feedback, I want to say, hey, what are some of the things that you need this player to do? And so I can try to help work for you. Let me help you kind of relay the same messages that you’re trying to ingrain in that player. And so then again, we’re all kind of working together. I just call it rallying the troops, we can get everybody you know to push and pull the player in the same direction. And then there is no kind of adversity that the player has to face that is unnecessary. The player might hit a wall, the player, but then we’re all pushing them under the wall or over the wall or through the wall around the wall together, instead of pulling them in different directions where then they end up, you know, staying put where they are.
Interviewer:
Yeah, I couldn’t, because I know that’s a big point of tension, especially these days is the trainer of the player. And then what the coaching staff wants or what the team wants, and something if it’s not communicated the right way, if there’s no communication, it’s like, it’s like what you said, the player might be being told one thing by the trainer and another thing by the coaching staff, and it’s just at some point, it all comes to a head.
Drew:
I think the biggest reason why is ego. I think, the way whether it’s the ego of the trainer or the ego of the coach, somebody has an ego and they forget that should be all about the player. And when everyone’s goal is to make that player the best possible player they can be or that team, then there’s there should be no egos, it should just be Hey, it’s not who’s right. It’s what’s right. And I think that’s the most important thing. It’s let’s do what’s right for the player, push them and encourage them to go in the direction they need to go to, and then they’re able to get the best results possible.
Interviewer:
Yeah. Absolutely, I guess I want to get back to what you said previously, and Christian’s question, actually, is the question I was going to follow up with a little bit as so my comment was going to be what you said about just doing? Who was it Brad Beal that knows Jason Tatum that you were just doing jab steps for a week, right? So, ever since the pandemic, we’ve gone hard into the virtual space, and we do a ton of virtual workouts. And initially, we were like, we don’t know if they’re gonna work, really, we think they will. It’s better than nothing. Let’s get it on. And just and just do it and see what happens. And Christian really led the charge there started doing Instagram workouts and then we transitioned over to zoom like a lot. And then we started perfecting that but like, our kids came back out onto the court after three months, and the ones who are consistently doing the virtual stuff were more skilled, just way better than before. And we were like, what happened? Like, what was it we kind of thought about it, but it goes back to what you just said it was like virtual confine them to this like small space. You couldn’t do all sorts of crazy stuff, launch threes launched, you know, 35 footers. Do you know, whatever, reverse layups, it was like you had to work on like footwork, ball handling, maybe form shooting and the strength of the list. It was like the core foundational skills of a player and we like blew our mind a little bit, but it was like, it was just it was funny. You said that because it’s like, that’s exactly what we’re seeing with the virtual stuff is like you constrict them to like a foundational skill. And if you do it for long enough, like they get way better than if they just like unleashed.
Drew:
I think that’s something that, you know, Brad Beal was on JJ Reddick podcast the other day, and JJ is asking about some of the work that we had done together over the years and, and that’s what Brad said, Brad’s like, we’ve been working together for 13 years, but every year, we pick one focus. And as crazy as that sounds, you know, there are some times where players maybe need one or two focuses, or maybe three focuses. But the problem is, you try to go with instead of depth, a lot of times you don’t spend enough time on something to master it. And then you’re not competent to use it in games. So, I’ll give an example. If you go out there, and you’re working on finishing, and you do you know, eight euro steps, then eight cross-steps, then eight reverse roles, and eight, you know, and you have all these different finishes, while your bag may be expanding, the problem is, you’re not spending enough time on something like hey, you know what, let’s just spend instead of doing 50 different finishes, let’s just spend 50 times working on our touch, so that we just avoid that offender and now we have the touch to finish it or shooting. You know, if you work on catching shoots, you work on right dribble pull ups, left dribble pull ups, maybe some kind of sidestep, and sidestep.
Now, when the game is just you’re reacting instead of having to Okay, I’m going to this move or going to that move. And so I’ve simplified my approach to player development every year that I’ve done it. And if you look back, like on YouTube and watch Brad Beal’s pre-draft videos, I mean, you’ll see a lot of stuff that Michael Jordan did or Dwayne Wade did or Kobe Bryant did, and we’re trying to mimic some of those guys. And while it did make Brad’s super versatile, as we’ve got smarter, we’ve really locked in so that we master the fundamentals that allow him to be successful at everything. So, we know if he can decelerate and accelerate on both beat. Well, now it just opens up his toolbox. We know if he can finish with both hands with good touch, it opens up his finishing. We know that if he can pass and distribute with both hands. Now he becomes a better playmaker. So, instead of having to work on a million drive and kick, drive and hook drive in if he just knows how to pass and control the ball, then he has a bigger toolbox. So, you know, the big thing is, I see a lot of players that when they come to me for pre-draft training, they get to me as college athletes. They’ve been really, really highly touted ever since they were young. But they lacked the basic fundamentals to build on.
So, maybe they have bad form on their shooting, and they’re like, Drew, I really need to work on creating more space. And I’m like, Listen, in two we not we can knock down shots consistently, we should never work on creating space, you know, and then they say, I want to work on my step back, but they don’t even know how to decelerate and stop on balance. If you can’t stop on balance, how are you going to stop and then hop back or separate step back, and then get on balance to shoot the shot. So, I think that people don’t realize that. You know, when people talk about fundamentals, most people kind of roll their eyes because they think fundamentals are basic and boring. But the truth is, fundamentals are what allow you to build everything else. And I think that’s something that’s so important for everybody that’s listening, because you see too many trainers, that they learn something new or see something new, and they immediately want to show off their new knowledge. You see, you know, coaches that don’t want to lose their player’s attention. So, they do cool things and new things because they just, they want to basically trick them into being excited. And you see players that would rather look good on the gram, then look good in the games, and all those things go into don’t get bored with the basics. Let’s master the fundamentals. And you know what the most fun and entertaining and exciting thing is shine when the game is actually happening. And so I think that as long as people keep game results as the priority, then they’re gonna end up working on the game skills and fundamentals that allow them to get those game results.
Interviewer:
Yeah. I love that drew as I’m listening to you talk again as a fellow skills trainer myself on a different level, you clearly see the game through this lens of analysis you’re talking about, well, you can’t shoot a step back because you don’t know how to decelerate. So, you’re constantly breaking these things down in your head. How did you get to that point? Did you always see the game that way you were a high-level division one basketball player. And for myself as a player, I never saw the game the way I see it. Now, that I’m outside the line, so to speak now that I’ve had to kind of take that step back, I feel like so much more has illuminated in my brain after, you know, in a way having the game taken away in terms of being able to play it. What was the journey like for you to get to this point where you now see the game through the lens that you see it through?
Drew:
Honest with you it was two things, one being a film geek and to asking a ton of questions. And so the first one being a film geek, when I was in college, I started a project that I watched every single made field goal in the NBA for eight NBA seasons. Now since then, it’s been you know, I’ve watched a nine season and now I watch as many games as possible. Now, it’s not as much of a like every single game, every possession as it was back then. Now, I have a team that helps me break down those things. But I would watch the games and my roommate, Cory Schmidt, who, you know, now coaches at the college level, I paid him to just record like to write down and type all of my thoughts. So, I’d be watching. And I’d break down all the ball screens and I’d have all the ball screen clips organized. And I’d say, okay, you know, the first thing you should always look at when you know the team is blitzing is reject. If you can reject, reject, if not use a screen.
Now, when you get to the level the screen, second thing you’re looking at, can you split through if you can slip through, split through if not try to get around, if you can get around, get around, if not drag and force a switch on the screen. And so what happened is, by watching all these clips, I organized into group them together into specific categories, I was able to watch the tendencies of what works always what works most of time, what sometimes works and what never works. And then I was able to, to make the complex, really simple. You know, some people you know, call it dumbify. You know what I mean? Simplify it for dummies, some people say simplicity make the complex, simple. But regardless what you call it, I almost had I started here, I learned all this stuff, just so that I could dumb it down and simplify it where I could really make it progressive for players. And I’ll tell you this, I did this the other day. And I said, I asked one of the trainers that I was mentoring in my mentorship program. And I said, Tell me everything you know about shooting in one minute go. And he was like, Alright, so you want your hand in the middle of the ball and you want to elbow above your eyebrow, and you want your other hand on the side and you want to snap it with this finger and he started naming off all these good teaching points. And I said stop. Now, if I asked somebody to repeat what you just said, would they be able to have a clue of what you just said? No, because it was all scattered. And while you might know a ton, if you can’t relay the information in a simple way the players can’t repeat it.
[25:00 – 30:05]
So, I said now, let me take you through a really complex version. And then let me take you through an easy version. I was like complex version that they can actually visualize. Let’s start at their feet. And I would say the first thing you need to do is you need to have a good balance base, which means your feet wide shoulder-width apart, anything feels comfortable angle doesn’t really matter. It’s all about comfortability, if you’re at 12 o’clock, 11 o’clock, 10 o’clock, for a right hand shooter, one o’clock, two o’clock doesn’t matter. As long as you feel comfortable and you feel like you’re on balance, then we go to the knees, knees just having flexed you want to be able to be relaxed and in a comfortable stance. Hips, make sure your hips are even in parallel, make sure your hips are low, so that you can use that kind of spring upward ball positioning when you catch the ball or when you pick up the ball, you want to make sure you get a good clean pick up around your belly button area usually, then after that, you want to start your shooting motion, as your hips are going down, or elbows starting to go up, you want to make sure that you kind of you know, start the motion up.
And then what you’re going to do is you’re going to connect your lower body with your upper body. And then when you get to the you know the shot pocket, which is right above, you know kind of your eyebrow level, you want to start making sure that your hand is his wrist back, and you want to start getting your hand under the middle of the ball. Because at the point of release, we want to have our hand in the middle of the ball, we want our hand to be spread wide, we want to snap it with our elbow above our eyebrow and we want to point your finger at the rim. When we land, we want to be on land on balance. And also make sure when you shoot the ball, you’re fully extended, you’re shooting it right before the peak of your jump instead of shoot all the way down. Now, at least with that complex version, I gave you a systematic way. Now, you can almost visually see the person jumping up and shooting.
Now, I make it a lot easier though I say do you think that a player can remember all that they can visually see that because at least it’s sequential. And it’s in an order. But now what if I say hey, listen, the biggest thing I want you to work on his feet flow and follow through. Feet, I want them to be shoulder width apart on balance at the start and I want you to land on balance. Flow, I want to make sure that you get your hips down and you connect it with the upper body so that you’re shooting in one smooth motion, follow through, I want to make sure that your hands in the middle of the ball then you shoot with your elbow booger eyebrow, point your finger at the rim, the flow follow through that can be remembered by all players. And so I took something that was really complex. I systematically programmed it from the feet up. And then I made it a lot easier by just saying feet flow follow through again, feet up. But now it’s in an easy kind of three apps where they can remember the three apps, they can remember the trigger words, and now they actually have a sequence that that works for them.
Interviewer:
Yeah, that’s interesting. I think a lot of people say that you can tell if someone actually no, totally understands a complex topic, if they can explain it that, you know, a fourth-grade level or, you know sixth-grade level or whatever. It’s the people that explain it in a complex way. That’s like they’ve just memorized like some of the terminology or whatever it is, but they don’t have a true understanding of it because they can’t break it down into like a simpler form. That’s interesting.
Drew:
Hey, I spent time with Kobe Bryant on the court. You know, Jason Tatum, I went out there and spent some time with them working out. And that was the biggest thing when I asked him I said, how did you go about pattern your game after MJ? How did you steal in Jays game, and he said it started with the fadeaway. Once I mastered the fadeaway then I mastered the shot fake into a fadeaway. Then I mastered the shot fake into a step through. Now people were sitting on my baseline fadeaway then I added the half spin fadeaway, then it was a half spin fadeaway, shot fake, then fadeaway, then it was a half spin fadeaway shot fake step through. I built my game in a systematic way so that I knew my first read was always based on fadeaway. If they overplayed to stop it then I would go to my counters but it was built in a 1234. You know what, that way, instead of what most players do, they have random moves will be like, Alright, I’m going to do the crossover jab and then I’m gonna go between the leg delay and then I’m, that’s not how it works. And if you think about the best scores in the NBA, they all have a system.
If you think about James Harden, who’s the leading scorer last couple years in the NBA, you know if everyone said if you threw a ball to anybody that watches any decent amount of NBA basketball and said mimic James Harden, they would immediately go between the legs and start dancing and know it’s going to be either between the leg flow between the leg cross and go between the leg into a sidestep or between the legs into like a fake attack and go or fake attack and change direction. You would know what it is. You know what I mean? Just like if you said mimic Steph Curry. You’re going to start shuffling because you’re thinking I’m trying to get my shot off and maybe get into my heavies Do you think about Katie you always think about right to left float heavy jump shot right to left float hesitant go all these players have these patterns. If you think about Jamal Crawford, you’re gonna naturally start hopping up and down and skipping and having the Seattle swag is just Isaiah Thomas is with his little half spin that that he used, you know, the middy move. All these players have their go to stuff. And the reason we say that their signature moves is just because they’ve mastered a system systematic way to, you know, read the game of basketball.
[30:05 – 40:06]
Interviewer:
Yeah. Hey, let’s, one thing that I think is impressive about you is, I mean, asides from your, the training stuff we’ve just talked about is how you’ve also been able to develop a business around it. I mean, you have a lot of stuff going on. I mean, you have, I guess, training, I would imagine is your, your core business, your training of NBA players, or college players, whatever. But, and I could be wrong here. So correct me if I’m wrong. But you’re kind of ancillary business or secondary business. You know, I don’t know how you look at it. And that’s maybe what we can clear up now is like, I mean, you’ve got an app and it looks awesome. You’ve got I’m looking at your website, right now you’ve got virtual skills, School Business of basketball training. So, some online training courses, virtual scout school, you have a mentorship program, looks like you do some events, I, maybe you trained some other kids, and maybe it’s not you maybe you’ve built up a team. So, can you just talk a little bit about your business and where it is now what you’re doing? And, you know, do you have a team and where you’re where you’re going with it all?
Drew:
Yeah, so I mean, it really, when I started training back when I was, you know, 16 years old, there was one reason why I fell in love with training, I got to help people using the game of basketball. So basically, I love help people, I love basketball and I was able to combine those two things. Since then I’ve kind of grown the mission to help as many players, coaches, trainers, and now we just, you know, I bought pro scout school. So that way you do everything under one roof. The biggest thing that I did a couple years ago is I hired Richard koski, who was my COO, everything for me; I mean he’s a lifesaver to be honest with you. And he runs the day to day pure sweat stuff. He’s up at all hours working his butt off. So, I found an amazing partner to really work with me. I don’t ever look at him as an employee; I look at him as like a Co boss. You know, we’re both running things together.
But yeah, I mean, we’ve got a lot of things. And our ultimate goal is just help as many people as we can. So the app goal was be able to provide Drew Hanlon workout experience, virtually. Then we had the virtual Skills School, which is basically for my entire life. I’ve been like, why is there no such thing as basketball school? Like you go learn about math and science and social studies? Why can’t you go learn about Triple Threat ball screens and post moves? So I said, You know what, I’m going to share my entire curriculum, I had this curriculum that was, you know, 2800 pages and then I had a bunch of other loose pages that were, you know, floating around, I said, I want to turn this into a full blown basketball School, where I can help trainers and coaches that are working with these athletes understand how to teach in a systematic, progressive way. Basically, I want to help save them all the film edits, and the studying and all the questions that I had to kind of ask when I was going up, then the next question became, there so many people that want to make training a full time thing. So I said, Alright, let’s start a business, you know, kind of mentorship program, where business basketball training, where I share, you know, the little things like how to start, you know, actual Corporation, so illegally are protected, how to get insurance, how to actually start growing academies, how to kind of, you know, make sure that you’re profiting enough to take care of yourself, always, you know, looking out for the players first and foremost, and, and then how to expand your social media, etc. And then, you know, then it became something where we were like, Alright, there’s a lot of young coaches that want to get into college coaching or NBA coaching. Well, I don’t know how many times I’ve had that same phone call, hey, here’s step one, here’s step two. So I said, Why don’t I put together a course for coaches learn how to break down film, learn how to, you know, Scout, or recruit or whatever it is put together a pregame scouting, report, or make post game adjustments how to run a practice plan.
And then we finally rich brought, you know, a couple years ago, I had spoke at pro scout school in Vegas, we love this stuff that was going on there. And so rich was like Drew, we have an opportunity to, you know, you know, purchase pro scout school. What do you think about it? And you know I trusted rich I said, hey, listen, let’s do it. Obviously, you know, it was a bad time for us because we didn’t get to run one this year. But we really just wanted to be able to service everybody in the basketball industry. We wanted to be able to take care of players take care of coaches, take care of trainers take her scouts take her young coaches that are you know, aspiring to move up the ranks as far as GA’s coordinators, etc. And, and then on top of all that, you have got my MBA training and I I still do a world tour every year, minus this year with the pandemic but he has a lot on my plate, but really, my goal is to help as many people as I can through the game of basketball and so that’s what I’m trying to do.
Interviewer:
A really quick I want to jump in just as just as a fun question for any of our young listeners out there. I mean, come on, man, you get to work with some of the best athletes in the world. Is that still does it ever just hit you? Oh man this is awesome. What I get to do every day get to walk in the gym with a Joelle with a Jason Tatum? Do you still find that that that fun and excitement in it that you know, you may have been much more excited about 10 years ago? Where how do you still find that joy to keep going? Because like you said, you’re to start the podcast you’re moving all the time. You haven’t been home in almost a year. You know, do you still get those awesome moments of, oh man I’m working with these awesome players.
Drew:
Not too much, to be honest with you. Like my job is to literally nitpick these players. So, you know what I mean? Like a lot. Like I remember Brad Beal scored 50, back to back nights, and I sent him like a, I don’t know how long that it was, but like a 12 minute edit of all the things he could have done better. And he’s like, damn, bro, we can’t celebrate. I just dropped 100 points. You know what I mean? So, yeah, and I look at it differently. Like, you know, I don’t know how many times where people come up to my guys. And I always laugh. I say, you know, the three main hats I wear. I’m their skills coach. I’m their therapist, because I’m always the one that they trust us to tell things because they know I’m not going to share with anybody else. And I’ll be able to help them get through. And I’m the photographer. And what that means is when we’re out to eat, fans come up, and they’ll be like, oh, my God, Zach Levine. And they kind of look at me, I’m like, yeah, I’ll take a picture of y’all here. Give me the phone, you know. But the truth is, they’re my friends. Like, those are my best friends. So, I don’t look at it as cool. The other day, I got to spend a whole day with Michael Jordan, which that was a surreal moment for me just because I grew up idolizing Michael Jordan. Like when I used to, if I did anything when I was younger, to get in trouble. And I was normally I looked at myself as a pretty good kid. But if I got in any kind of trouble, I was grounded from watching the boys play that night. And then I would sneak my dad’s Walkman radio that takes you back to the 90s take my dad’s Walkman radio into my bedroom. Act like I was sleeping to be listening to the game like this on the Walkman. I mean, that’s how obsessed I was with MJ and the bulls growing up. And spending the day with him was really cool. Just because I got to ask him all the questions I’ve always wanted to ask. And also, I always ask this question to my guy. So, whenever my guys are struggling mentally, emotionally, with something, I always say, hey, would your 10 year old self be proud of who you are today? And if they’re being real with themselves, they always smile and they’re like, yeah, you want to mean like,
Interviewer:
It’s a Great question.
Drew:
Kelly O’Brien, He’s like, yeah, my 10 year old self would be wearing a Kelley O’Brien jersey and be the biggest fan. You know what I mean? If I go ask that question to Brad Beal, he’s like, are you kidding me? Like, the fact that you know, I get to play basketball for a living, I get to be one of the best. I’m the second leading scorer in the NBA at 30.5 points a game like, Yes, I’d be so proud of myself. And so for me, that’s every once a while, I’ll have those moments where I’ll be like my 10 year old self. Literally, my birthday present was a ticket to the bull’s game, my Christmas present was a flight to the bull’s game. And I look forward to it, you know, for those three months, just to be able to spend a day with my idol was really cool. And then also, I always I always say this, but there was one moment that really was surreal for me. I was doing a world tour last year. And so I did. I think I did 15 countries in 31 days, which is ridiculous thinking back how much you know, I was moving around all over the world. But there was a really cool moment where I was in, I was on a layover in Spain. And I was coming back from Tel Aviv. And there was I was getting ready to cross where like there is a security for just flights going to United States. There’s extra security that the US does. And so I went through the regular security and I’m walking to the US security and a kid come sprinting up about a high school kid sprinting. It goes through coach drew out of breath, and I’m like, Yeah, what’s up, man, he’s like, man, I just want to say thank you so much. I know you don’t know who I am. But I use all your programs. And he started telling me about all the success. He’s like, he’s like, Bro, I started working with your programs back when you were nobody. And for me, it was such a surreal moment that I was able to impact somebody’s gaming life that I had never met. And so every once in a while, those kind of moments, the, you know, the kind of the appreciation moments where somebody else is like, hey, just you know, like, I wasn’t going to make the high school team. I got cut last year. I used one year, you know, programs on your app. And, you know, now I was part of a state championship team, or Hey, I always I thought I was gonna give up basketball after my senior year in high school. But, you know, I really was encouraged by your morning shooting program that you did as a player. I started doing it. I got a college scholarship, that’s gonna save me $120,000 like those kind of moments are the moments that really I? I kind of say, all right, like, you know what I mean? I’m helping a lot of people. And that’s what it’s all about.
[40:06 – 46:35]
Interviewer:
Yeah. I love that. Really quick, I’ll throw it to you I know we’re at the end of the time but I just wanted to add a comment I love that you said they’re your friends I’ve been fortunate to work with Luke May at chapel hill when he won a national championship Wendell Moore Jr. who’s at duke just to throw out some big names and when you’re in the gym with the man they’re just another person it’s just another guy sweating and if anyone’s still listening at this point any young listeners, I just love that you put it that way and I want you know everyone to know that could be you too. At one point they were just a ten-year-old kid and once you do get in the gym with them I’ve been fortunate to play some pickup with Kimba as well and it just blew me away that Kimba was just a nice guy that smiled and walked in and shook my hand and said how you doing today and I and I want everyone out there listening to remember that that could be you. That could have been one of us. It’s just another guy who certainly probably has some physical gifts but they just have worked really hard and they’re not necessarily superheroes that that is attainable if you’re willing to work for it
Drew:
Add to that too somebody the other day asked me on Instagram, I was doing a QA and they said what’s the best way to build your clientele as a trainer my answer was get one player better, then get another player better and then get another player better and that’s the real secret sauce help every player that you’re in the gym. If you’re a player and you’re sitting there and saying you know oh man what can I do to make this big jump. don’t worry about the big jump, what can you do tomorrow that’s going to impact your ability to get better for the next day and for the next day and the next day and that compounding you know effect is going to take you to a whole new level and I think so many trainers right now are so quick to take credit for everybody that walks in their gym. they want to take a picture so they can validate themselves but to me the best sign of a good trainer or a good coach is someone that takes a player from point A and gets them to point B and then C and then D it’s not just grabbing somebody that’s already at you know F and then claiming look I’m working with this guy. And so for trainers out there that maybe are just starting out and they’re maybe down on themselves because they don’t get the social media recognition or the validation from all that stuff. Just know, I still to this day I value training every sixth grader that I work with just as much as I do when I’m working with my all NBA guys and the truth is where you take a player from where they start to where they finish, that’s what you’re responsible for and I tell people all this time all this all the time. Most basketball players, the game of basketball is the second most important thing in their life. Family is number one and then basketball is number two.
Because they connect their identity so close with their basketball and so while I try to the first step is I try to detach that and let them realize basketball is just a game and a part of life. For that moment while they’re still playing they feel like basketball is the biggest thing in their life outside of their family and if somebody doesn’t matter how old how good how talented how highly ranked they are if they trust you with the second most important thing in your life, you have a responsibility to do anything and everything you can to help them maximize you know their happiness and their success in that area of their life and so I really do it. It drives me crazy when I see you know people basically like stomping on their own clientele to be like, oh, man I only work with sixth graders.
I’m like you need to value those sixth graders because you know what those sixth graders are relying on you and trusting on you and they appreciate all the work you put in. So, like don’t look down on yourself the person that I value the most in the basketball world is my high school basketball coach. And you know what like yeah he won three state championships but when I met him he had never won anything we won our first you know my first state championship was his first state championship. We did that together but I appreciate all the hard work he did and all this and I value him just as much as all the big name coaches that I’ve been able to steal from. So, you know for people out there that maybe don’t have a blue check or don’t have a hundred thousand followers or don’t whatever it doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day whenever your career your training career ends your coaching career ends or whatever the only thing that you’re gonna do is you’re gonna value the relationships you made and the impact that you had on everybody that you spent time with in the gym.
Interviewer:
Man. I was getting ready to ask a final question but I think that is perfect. That is a great way to end it because I was literally going to ask like you know what are what’s your top advice for basically players, parents, trainers, coaches and like that covered at all and it’s right in line with what we believe I mean we’re over here working with third through 11th graders. So, we love it man and we appreciate you being on you’re doing excellent work not only at the NBA level but also for the whole youth community. Love what you’re doing online and virtually everyone who’s listening to this go check out the app. Pure sweat, check out his website tons of stuff virtually whether you’re interested being a scout, being a better coach. There’s so much there so make sure you go check it out drew where can everyone find you online on social media or how can they connect with you?
Drew:
Yeah. It’s easy. I mean my handle is Drew Hanlen, h-a-n-l-e-n on all platforms and then I’ve got a text community you know 314-461-1862 which is basically a free I mean literally, it’s me texting. I send out text messages people that first when they sign up it’s funny they’ll always be like is this really true or is this robot and then I’ll go a couple days. I’ll forget to send out text messages and they’ll be like, hey, why am I not getting messages I’m like because it’s really me. Like, I’m really having to send these messages I wish it was a robot that was doing it but yeah I know if they want if they want to get free stuff and be able to connect with me. You know, that I have a line that number is strictly to help player’s coaches and trainers out. So, 314-461-1862 is the best way to get a hold of me and get free access to all the drills that I send out on a weekly basis.
Interviewer:
That’s great we’ll put that in the in the show notes as well. So, hey, really appreciate like we said know you are a busy man. So, thanks for all you do and man hopefully one day we can do another round because I feel like we could talk for another couple hours but this has been great so thanks a lot man.
Drew:
Awesome! Thanks for having me on.
