With six weeks left until the start of training camp, it’s officially workout video season. After the championship parade and the draft and free agency and Summer League, there’s a calm that comes over the NBA landscape…unless you’re James Harden or Damian Lillard.
But as August flips to September, players start ramping up their routines. On Sunday night, Payton Pritchard teamed up with former Celtics legend Isaiah Thomas and lit up the Ball Don’t Stop pro-am up in Vancouver for 61 points. Jay Scrubb and some of his new younger teammates have already started to get some run in together in Atlanta with Malcolm Brogdon and Al Horford.
And out in LA, Jayson Tatum is wrapping up workouts with his trainer, Drew Hanlan, and one Mr. Paul Pierce:
“Watching JT sharpen those tools, seeing what greatness looks like,” Pierce says in the Instagram video.
Tatum is of course coming off an All-NBA First Team season where he finished fourth in MVP voting behind Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. But those accolades probably won’t fuel his drive this summer. Neither will scoring 51 points in Game 7 at TD Garden to wrap up a comeback series against the MVP. It’s coming up short against the Heat after clawing back from an 0-3 deficit. It’s being the constant for a franchise that made massive moves around him this summer. It’s having to spend time away from Deuce in order to get bigger and stronger for next season.
Like the Hall of Famer says, that’s what greatness looks like.
