Slam Online has a great read about Joe Abunassar and how he got Kevin Garnett in shape after the knee surgery:
spent away from the court since the Boston Celtics shut him down in
March. His spindly frame had put on some weight. His legs – known for
its explosiveness and speed – were not firing properly. His right calf
suffered significant atrophy. For a player whose game relied on
unrelenting speed, Garnett had to approach the last two months of his
summer slowly retracing his steps...
They knew how to rebuild Garnett’s legs. They
spent considerable time on his legs, guiding him through a series of
repetitive exercises with dumbells mini-bands and physio balls. He did
calf raises, deadlifts with dumbbells, an assortment of crunches with a
medicine ball. They attacked his core from all angles, knowing the
stronger Garnett’s core was, the less weight there would be on his
legs. “We were probably way more detailed in our approach to preparing
him this year than we have ever been,” says Abunassar.
Nearly every day Rudy Gay and Memphis Grizzlies teammate Kyle Lowry
sluggishly entered the Impact gym at 11 a.m., they saw Garnett sitting
in the weight room, catching his breath and staring around the gym.
“You don’t even see him work out,” says Gay during a practice session
at Impact earlier in September. “But then you talk to Joe and he says,
‘yeah, I’ve been here since 7 a.m., working out KG’… that gives you
something to learn from.”
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