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ñ The Brian Grant Story Determined Grant eyes future while battling relentless opponent

W EST LINN, Ore. -- The afternoon sunlight lets itself Grant sought out guard and told him: "I disease that afflicts other celebrities has meant that ñ Rebounding Drills into Brian Grant's living room, a welcome guest these will beat everyone down the floor on every play. Get Grant doesn't have to walk alone. He has met actor days. Playoff football is on the flat-screen TV, the Jets me the ball and I'll get both of us drafted." Grant Michael J. Fox and iconic boxing champ Muhammad against Grant's beloved Bengals. He reclines in a dominated the competition and was picked eighth by Ali, both battling Parkinson's. In November, Grant ñ Set Plays of the M onth leather lounge chair, a remote control and iPhone at Sacramento. Reeves went 12th to Miami. Monty joined Fox in New York for a fundraising gala benefit- the ready, his left hand shaking ever so slightly -- but W illiams, now patrolling the Blazers' sideline as Nate ing the Michael J. Fox Foundation. He met Ali in always, always shaking. McMillan's lead assistant, was selected 24th by the Phoenix last year at the dedication of an expanded ñ Coaches Notebook: Knicks in that draft -- which earned him nine years of Parkinson's . This is the rhythm of Grant's life. Thirteen-year-old colliding with Grant's cement-like screens. "Being a Half Court Actions Elijah, wearing a jersey and his dad's long, wing player running off screens and chasing around Grant proudly posted photos of himself and Ali on his elegant dreadlocks, is getting ready for a game. the top scorers, I always had to run through guys like Facebook page, but the event also provided a cruel Another son, 11-year-old Jaydon, is taking care of the Brian," W illiams said. "He was kind of a throwback for preview of what the future may hold. Ali, 68, the dog before heading to a game of his own. A daughter, me, he and guys like Otis Thorpe, Mark Bryant and greatest, most flamboyant champion in the history of ñ UOB Plays of the M onth 7-year-old Maliah, is at dance class, and 6-year-old Charles Oakley. W hen he set screens, you'd feel it in American sports, needed two people to help him walk. Anaya is busy, too. This week will be a good one. your back. It just jarred your whole body. Coming back A giant of sports, a semi-automatic self-promoter, Ali "I will pretty much be Mr. Mom," Grant said. up the floor, you'd get a salty taste in your mouth and could no longer speak. Not a single word. "It can be a The house, in full view of the Cascade Mountains on then you'd realize, 'That's blood.'" To a pillar of scary feeling," Grant said. "And even worse, not a clear day like this, is bustling with the kind of strength like Grant, the word "depression" was synony- knowing how it's going to affect me. Am I going to not weekend activity that envelops homes across Amer- mous with "weakness" -- until he was diagnosed with be able to walk or talk? Am I going to be so drugged ARIZONA DID YOU KNOW ? ica. Even inside, the Pacific Northwest air is fresh and it. W hat he learned later almost knocked him over: up that I'm not going to be able to do anything with my soothing. Relaxation and contentment are interrupted Depression and Parkinson's often go hand-in-hand, a kids?" Parkinson's steals your dignity, one sentence by the occasional, damning Bengals turnover, and brutal double-team that converges on you like two at a time, unless you do what Fox told Grant was the In the history of Arizona also by the tremors -- a skittish, unruly metronome Shaqs. According to medical journals, many Parkin- single most important factor in learning to live with the that can't be controlled or predicted. son's patients experience depression because of disease. "Lose the vanity," Grant said. "People are Basketball there have been 62 reduced dopamine levels in the brain. There is dis- going to look. Your tremor is going to be your tremor. It total players get drafted into the Other than twitching and fatigue in his left shoulder, agreement over which comes first -- in other words, will be there, but you kind of have to lose it all and put Brian Grant feels no pain. His 6-foot-9, 250-pound whether depression contributes to Parkinson's or is it all out of your mind. Don't let Parkinson's rule you. NBA since 1948 with 31 of them frame still looks capable of setting up shop under an merely an early symptom of the disease. "The thing You've got to rule Parkinson's as best you can." NBA basket, there to hold its own against bigger, about it is, I'm always on the edge," Grant said. "I can W e go for a ride in Grant's SUV, dropping Jaydon at being since 1989. Of that 31 since more hulking bodies. Emptiness comes and goes feel myself wanting to slip back into it. That doesn't basketball practice. The sun seems unusually low in 1989, 16 of them have been 1st without warning, an uninvited visitor called depres- happen to everybody, but I recognize it. Some morn- the sky for the middle of the day, barely 2 p.m. local sion. Another disease, Parkinson's, is more persis- ings I get up and can just feel it, and you've just got to time in the mountains. He takes me for a ride around Round Picks with 10 of them tent. It's here for good. The tremors begin when Grant tell yourself, 'No, I'm going to get up and do what I town, and it doesn't take long to understand why he opens his eyes every morning and don't subside until have to do. I'm going to take my kids to school. I'm not moved here from South Beach a few years ago. Here being lottery picks. his dreadlocked head hits the pillow for a night of going to think about any negative stuff that's going on. it is quiet, and the clean air and simple life are good for sweet, glorious sleep. Thankfully, the part of the brain I'm going to think about what I can accomplish today a family. Mount Hood watches over us in the distance, where Parkinson's lives shuts down when you dream. and that's how it's going to be.' an inspiring sight like none you've ever seen. "W hen you've got to go out and bang against Shaq or go out and play against a or a Karl "If you think about it too long, you just start sinking into W e drive past his old home, a pristine mansion that he Malone, it's like you see your opponent in front of the chair and you don't want to go anywhere," Grant still calls his dream house, not far from where he lives UPCOM ING ARIZONA GAM ES you," Grant said. "You know that your opponent is said, his voice drifting off to a deep, dark place. "And now. Gina lives there, and the realtor's sign gives flesh and blood and you know that they've got weak- you're like, 'Damn, I'm almost in it. I'm going to get out away the obvious. First depression and Parkinson's, nesses the same as anybody. And so there's sort of of here before I'm in it.' Because once you're in, dude? and now divorce has come to knock on Brian Grant's Feb. 4 - @ W ashington an encouragement to that. But with this, there's no It's hard to get out." door. "I think my marriage was a victim of a lot of beating it. This is something that is eventually going things," Grant said. "Gina is a wonderful woman. It's to catch up to you. It's either going to happen quickly, A believer in naturopathic medicine, Grant manages not just from the time I retired. That played a big part Feb. 6 - @ W ashington State or it's going to take a long time. It's like being in a fight his depression with an herbal remedy and counseling of it, but it was stuff throughout my career with me. that you know you can't win." sessions. He takes a host of other vitamins and Everything just came to a head -- past and present, minerals geared toward, among other things, reducing both sides. And for me, it just happened at the wrong Feb. 11 - Oregon The fight began about a year ago, when Grant stood an unusually elevated mercury count. Medical doctors time. W e're friends, and we do everything that we can in a doctor's office, peering out the window, and aren't ready to make the connection, but Grant be- to help the kids." He has two other sons, Amani and heard these words wash over him: "You've got young- lieves that his body's inability to process mercury -- Jonavan, and the energy he used to pour into boxing Feb. 13 - Oregon State onset Parkinson's ..." which collects in fatty tissue like the part of the brain out and rebounding now goes to something much He was 36 years old when he heard that sentence -- linked to Parkinson's -- contributed to his early onset of more rewarding. There are people in the world who a sentence in every sense of the word. the disease. The majority of Parkinson's victims are in care a great deal about Brian Grant, and it has nothing Feb. 21 - Arizona State Grant, now 37, played 12 years in the NBA, becoming their 50s or 60s when the disease takes hold; some at all to do with the millions he earned or the thou- a fan favorite for his signature locks, as well as the health providers estimate that 5 to 10 percent of sands of points he scored on the basketball court. lock-down defense and sheer grit that earned him one victims are under age 40. "My prayer is that he could have people around him Feb. 25 - @ California of the richest contracts in league history to that - who support him and will be there for him when he has - a seven-year, $86 million deal he signed with the There's a laundry list of treatments, procedures and bad days," W illiams said. "Because when you go in 2000. None of it ever changed him like eventually prescription drugs that will be available to through something like that, your bad days are fre- Feb. 27 - @ Stanford this. "The end result, ultimately, is that you're domi- help Grant slow the progress and mask the effects of quent. And a lot of the times, you're the only one who nated," Grant said. He started unraveling soon after Parkinson's. But the answers he craves -- how fast the knows." knee problems forced him to retire from the NBA in disease will progress, and how widespread its impact 2006 at age 33. His world stopped, and he drifted into will be -- don't exist. "This opponent has a face, but The bad days come and go. The good ones are filled a deep, unforgiving darkness he couldn't explain -- or you don't know what it's going to do," Grant said. "You with rides to and from school and basketball gyms. didn't want to. His wife, Gina, would come home from have no clue as to how it's going to attack you. At The great days? In some ways, the great days are still a day's work as a Latin dance instructor only to find times, that can put fear into me." ahead. Grant is busy planning a fundraising gala and her husband right where she'd left him that morning -- golf tournament in Portland for Aug. 1-2, hoping to get in the bedroom, eating cereal and watching TV with Today, Grant has emerged from the darkness that commitments from Ali's family and from Fox. Former the blinds drawn. "I knew something was wrong, flooded his life in the months and years after retiring teammates, rivals and coaches e-mailed and texted because this wasn't normal," Grant said. "I knew I from the NBA. Last May, he decided to go public with after he went public with Parkinson's and said, "If didn't miss it that much." "It" was playing basketball, his condition, announcing his Parkinson's diagnosis to there's anything I can do ..." One at a time, they're something Grant did with a rare combination of brute a national TV audience. Close friends, like Blazers getting called on those offers. W ith the playoffs and force, recklessness and delicate skill. A relentless head athletic trainer Jay Jensen and other members of summer league over by then, Grant is hoping for a big bruiser out of Xavier, Grant had been advised time the organization Grant played for from 1997-2000, NBA turnout at his event, the first meaningful step in and again to skip the 1994 pre-draft camp, which in already knew. "If you didn't see the symptoms from the this new life -- his life with Parkinson's. those days was held in Phoenix. Nothing to gain, Parkinson's, you wouldn't even know it," W illiams said. everything to lose, they told him. But one person "He doesn't walk around with a sad look on his face. "It's just like anything else," Grant said. "You've just believed in Grant -- his agent, Mark Bartelstein. He's always smiling, always going out of his way to got to keep battling until you can't battle anymore." say, 'W hat's up?' to the guys. A lot of former players Today, Bartelstein is one of the most influential get standoffish because they think the younger guys agents in the NBA, with dozens of clients. But back don't know who they are. Brian's not like that. He's a then, he was staking his reputation on Grant attend- cool cat. That's the only way you could put it." ing that camp and shining. Before the ball went up, Getting diagnosed with a debilitating neurological PA G E 2 Rebounding Drills W ar Drill (8 minute drill) Knicks Drill Get to the Basket Drill (1 ball, 6, 8 or 10 players, Full (1 or 2 balls, 6 or more players) (1 ball, 3 or more players) Court) Place two defenders side by side facing the offense (if On the shot by the number 3 (could be a coach), X1 and X4 come out and box out (they start with you have football pads use them) and on the shot the Defense is in the paint and matches up. On the one foot on the baseline). Offensive players 1 and offense has to bust through to the basket. This teaches shot by the coach, their goal is to go meet the offense 5 are going hard to the rim. Numbers 2 and 4 are them to never surrender going to the basket and to be outside of the paint and keep them out of it. there for the outlet pass. If the defense gets the aggressive. The offensive players are set up behind the three they are going to pivot to the outside and point line and except for the point guard, (who gets outlet the ball. If it‘s a made shot, they run out of Only drill this from the wings. If we have an offensive back on defense), are going hard to the rim. The bounds to outlet the ball. The offense players try to player at the top we would normally want him to get defender on the point guard should look to help on stop the outlet pass. You could have one player back on defense. boxing someone else out. deny the inbounder and the other denying the This is a highly competitive drill with a winner player receiving the pass. W ithout the pads, the defense gives a little pressure, and loser. If the offense gets the rebound they get a If the offense gets the rebound they go 2 on 2 just enough to make them push through. point and can try to score a 2 or 3 pointer. If they and try to score or the drill can be reset (coaches score we set the drill back up. If the defense gets the option). rebound or forces a turnover, there is no point Offensive players switch between being offense scored but they push the ball down court (transition or outlet players. The defense remains defense until offense) and try to score on the other end. On a score you switch them out. or turnover by them, play stops and we set the drill Try to match up the lines with perimeter players back up. in one line and post players in the other. The ball will only go from one end to the other This could be a competition drill with sprints for end one time and then the drill would be reset. If we the losers. A defensive rebound is one point, a don‘t reset the drill, it becomes a transition drill and successful outlet pass is one point, an offensive not a contact drill. rebound is two points and a made basket is one

point. There are no points on a made shot by the coach but The Defenders can cross and block out opposite it is still played like a rebound. line to vary the drill.

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Coaches Notebook: Half Court Actions 1997 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 2001 NATIONAL RUNNER-UP

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