If you want to be a great basketball player, you have to be in great?shape. Everyone talks about the fancy workouts and training?sessions, but I also worked relentlessly to make sure that my legs?and lungs were always at peak performance.

My cardio workouts centered around recovery—that is, the time it?takes to recover in between sprints. The reason I placed an acute?focus on that element is because basketball dictates short bursts?where you run as fast as you can, then have a moment to recover,?then burst again. I wanted to make sure that I would always be?ready for the next burst of action.

Specifically, I did a lot of timed work on the track where I would?incrementally decrease the amount of time between each set until,?after a full off-season, my recovery time would be almost nil.