The NBA All-Star fraternity forged by trash talk — and the antagonist holding them together

New York Times

2 days ago

Tyrese Haliburton's phone rings with a familiar name across the screen. When he sees this person calling, he never knows if it's going to make his day or piss him off. He's fine with that. It's what he signed up for.
He answers the call to hear the voice of his skills trainer, Drew Hanlen. The basketball guru tells Tyrese he is talking to another Tyrese, as Haliburton is about to play Tyrese Maxey's Philadelphia 76ers.
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'He'll tell me, 'Hey, Maxey said he's locking that s— down tomorrow.' And I'll be like, 'F— out of here. Last time we played, I did this, this and that!'' Haliburton told The Athletic. 'I'm not even thinking that he's purposely getting me to say that because he's with (Maxey).'
If Hanlen is with a client who is on a scoring run, he'll call another client who is in a rut to tell them on speakerphone that they need to catch up. If two of his guys are about to square off, he puts them on a text chain together and starts talking trash. When the Boston Celtics and Sixers face each other, he puts two of his other most famous clients, Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid, in a group chat, telling Embiid he's never won a title and Tatum he's never won MVP.
This is the game that Hanlen has been playing with his collection of star clients for the last decade. He loves to pit them against each other, harboring rivalries among one of the most talented groups of friends in the NBA. This may be put to the test in the NBA Finals, as two clients, Haliburton and Oklahoma City Thunder big Chet Holmgren, are one Pacers win away from squaring off.
In a league the older generation has often lambasted for being too friendly, Hanlen's approach is an example of how competition is alive and well. It's just taken on a new form.
'A lot of us are really good dudes, and we don't necessarily go out of our way to talk s— to each other. Drew kind of forces it to happen,' Haliburton said. 'He'll be (with me) talking to Joel purposely on the phone before I play Philly and say, 'Joel, Tyrese said he is going to kill you tomorrow.' I never said that! But he'll just put that in Joel's ear.'
These acts stoke competition between his clients, who are usually the ones with the ball in their hands most of the night. Iron sharpens iron, and Hanlen is the forge that heats things up.
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'Drew's kind of an a–hole. If you don't know him, he can rub you the wrong way,' said Bradley Beal, his longest-running client. 'I love it. Where we're from, it's how we are. 'He never allows complacency to settle in, and I think that's where the group texts come in.'
'That sounds about right,' Maxey added. 'Brad said it, not me.'
Hanlen has become one of the NBA's most recognizable skills trainers, and his players have become some of the most recognizable faces in the NBA. Skills trainers typically work on players' games independently of the teams and predominantly during the offseason, though Hanlen also works with his clients between games. He's been a fixture during the playoffs and was there to greet Haliburton courtside Tuesday after his triple-double in the Pacers' Game 5 win over the New York Knicks.
Hanlen, a St. Louis native, got his start training Beal when they were in high school. He took on NBA All-Star David Lee while playing at Belmont University, then a 13-year-old Tatum at Beal's request. Now, the client list for his company, Pure Sweat, boasts 31 All-Star appearances among Tatum (six), Embiid (seven), Maxey (one), Haliburton (two), Tyler Herro (one), Zach LaVine (two), Beal (three) and the newest addition this season, Giannis Antetokounmpo (nine). Hanlen also trains Holmgren, Trey Murphy III, RJ Barrett and Kelly Oubre Jr.
He spends the NBA season traveling to the various clients scattered around the league, providing in-person training and daily film reviews. That means a lot of praise, but even more criticism.
'My job is to push them to basically the breaking point without breaking them, then build them back up,' Hanlen said. 'There's a lot of times where I'm sitting on the fence of crossing the line of what should be said, but I'm willing to take those risks because they know I'm doing it out of care and love and not just strictly to be an a–hole.'
When Murphy finished his first summer working out with Hanlen, he came up with a thoughtful gift for his new trainer. The New Orleans Pelicans forward presented Hanlen with a game-used jersey and wrote him a heartfelt card saying how much he appreciated all the hard work.
Hanlen scoffed, telling Murphy this violated his No. 1 rule: He doesn't hang jerseys unless the player scores 40 points in them.
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'He started laughing,' Hanlen said. 'And I was like, 'No, I'm being dead serious. This isn't going on the wall.''
Murphy should have been mad, but he respected the challenge. So when the Celtics came to town on Jan. 31, he wanted to make a statement that only Hanlen and his clients would understand. Hanlen would be watching with Tatum, his most famous client, on the other side. Time to get that 40-piece.
Murphy pulled it off for the first time in the NBA. He also did it the next game for good measure. But when Tatum buried the game-winner in Murphy's face, Hanlen ended up with the last laugh.
'It was really dope because it was against JT, so I wish we would've won because I would've definitely had a lot more s— to say,' Murphy said. 'We lost that game, so it wasn't as cool, but it was still pretty cool going against one of his protégés, one of the guys that he's worked with forever. I was about to send him both jerseys, but I was like, you don't deserve those jerseys at all.'
It was a learning moment for Murphy. He is part of a group of players — some past their prime, some still in it, some just entering it — who have been putting jerseys on that wall for years. The standard isn't just getting better, but being one of the best.
'He sees something in me he thinks he can harness and do all this stuff with, and he works with a bunch of guys that are super high-level players,' Murphy said. 'Obviously, it makes me feel a lot better. It's like, all right, he sees me being in this group one day, if not sooner than later.'
Hanlen estimates taking about 150 flights and spending 250 nights in hotels a year. If he's not with a client in person, he's FaceTiming them after games and sending them film edits the following morning. He doesn't watch TV or know what's going on in the news, because he defines obsession as the narrowing of things that bring you pleasure. He obsesses over basketball, and he makes sure his clients do, too.
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'I've kicked so many NBA All-Stars and players out of my gym at any given summer. If they do not love basketball, I can't stand being around them,' Hanlen said. 'If they are not coachable, I can't stand being around them. And if they are not as obsessed with me about putting in the work, then I can't stand being around them.'
During the summer, Hanlen's clients all descend upon Los Angeles to take turns working with him. They have daily one-on-one training sessions, then go at each other in five-on-five runs often. When they meet again back in the NBA following a summer working together, the friendly rivalries get even more intense.
'People don't understand. Everybody says the league is too friendly. Many guys are friends in the NBA. And while that may be the case, a lot of times, dudes play harder when they play against their friend,' Murphy said. 'They know during the summertime, people are going to be talking s—. I don't want to hear anything during the summertime about how somebody cooked me, so I'm making sure I play my hardest, too, because you brag harder against your friends.'
When playing for pride — especially with no technical fouls on the line — decorum is wasteful. If you've got trash to talk, the floor is yours. If you dunk on someone, stare them down. Laugh in their face. Just know you may be next.
The competition isn't just for bragging rights. It's also to get ahead. Players can't stop growing in a league that has new stars emerging every year, so the workouts and runs are chances to gain an edge over the guy trying to beat someone else for an All-Star spot.
Hanlen's mantra is 'Hate me now, thank me later.' He says he has never feared losing a client. The only thing he fears, he says, is not pushing them to be their best.
'All NBA players have egos. We all have an ego. None of us would be NBA players if we didn't have that,' Beal said. 'He checks your ego; he checks your hunger, your determination of how good you want to be as a player.'
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While they can take his word for it, Hanlen deliberately keeps his players interacting with each other to organically foster accountability through competition. It even comes through in the way they reshape their games.
Embiid is renowned for how quickly he learns new skills. Walk him through a new dribble combination into a tough shot, and he'll break it out in a scrimmage the next day. It sounds hard to believe from a player of his massive size, but Haliburton learned the hard way just how true it is.
'I think back to my first summer with Drew, and I was really struggling to pick up this (isolation) move we were working on. Then I got done with my workout, and Joel walked in and picked it up in 10 seconds,' Haliburton said. 'I was so pissed because I was like, 'How is this guy figuring it out before me?' That made me want to come to the gym the next day and stay a little longer to figure that s— out.'
Players show up early to watch each other work, then stick around to see how they stack up. Hanlen gives scheduling priority based on who has been with him the longest — Beal and Tatum get first crack — so there's often a vet, an MVP candidate and a young buck there at the same time. Three different stages of their careers, all learning from each other.
Hanlen adds rising stars to the roster over time, which keeps the veteran players motivated. When Holmgren first joined Pure Sweat after he was drafted as the No. 2 pick by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2022 NBA Draft, he was going right at Embiid in their first run of the summer. The rookie was burying stepbacks, blocking his shot and making the former MVP look washed up.
'I walk up to Joel and was like, 'Do you realize that every single person in this gym is going to have this story about how Chet Holmgren dominated Joel Embiid if you don't start actually trying and pick it up?'' Hanlen said. 'And he's like, 'I got you, bro.' The next game, Joel said, 'Don't help, don't help,' and scored 17 straight points.'
When it was all over, as Holmgren asked if it's even possible to stop Embiid, the Sixers center spent the next 20 minutes teaching Holmgren how to guard him properly.
'He's probably (one of) the only (people) that can talk trash to guys like Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid, and they go out there and respond in a positive way,' Maxey said.
Hanlen builds trust by giving players goals that often seem unreachable when they first work with him. He convinces them to believe in the goal, then he starts to go rough on them, fortifying their belief that he's getting under their skin to help them get to their goal.
'If you ain't built for it, it hurts your feelings sometimes. Maybe you have to tell Drew (to) dial it down a little bit,' Beal said. 'But for the most part, man, the competitive spirit in us takes everything that he says, and it's like, 'You know what, f— that. I'm going to do this. I'm going to be the best version I can. I'm going to prove you wrong.' I will say, not everybody can handle it. But the group of guys that he has, we all have that within each other.'
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When Maxey was excited to reach the 20-points-per-game threshold, Hanlen pointed out Maxey ranked eighth among his clients in scoring. He challenged Maxey to get to the top 10 in the NBA in scoring and win games without Embiid, who has missed most of the past two seasons with knee injuries.
Maxey thought Hanlen was getting ahead of himself, saying there was too much talent in Philadelphia to score 26 points per game. Hanlen told him he didn't care. Maxey was capable of it; he just had to believe he could. Though the Sixers remained a disaster without Embiid on the floor over those past two seasons, Maxey hit that 26-points-per-game mark and arrived as a star in this league.
'People usually say (the game is) 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical, and you laugh at that when you're younger,' Maxey said. 'But now that you're getting older, it literally is. You have to know the game to be good at it.'
Haliburton tells similar stories about how Hanlen's lofty goals changed the way he viewed himself. The trainer pushed Haliburton to pursue his own shot more, which paid dividends as Haliburton hit clutch shots to pull off multiple memorable comebacks in this playoff run.
This season, their focus was on getting Haliburton's mind right after the Pacers star struggled with his mental health. He had a resurgent second half to the season and has made a superstar's leap in the playoffs. Watching him play now, he controls the game with a confidence he's never quite shown before.
This time of year, however, is when Hanlen feels like he loses no matter what. During the regular season, it's fun to clown on his clients for losing to each other. The results mean something, but not everything. But once it's win or go home — especially if Holmgren and Haliburton face off in the finals — the tone changes.
'This is the most miserable time of the year for me, because I'm almost like a parent where you're only as happy as your saddest kid,' Hanlen said. 'It's hard when you have two guys that you really care about and that you're so close to that are competing, knowing that one guy's going to get to move on and be happy, and one guy's getting sent home.'
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It's also the time when Hanlen and his clients remember that while the competition is always fierce when they face each other, it's always love at the end of the day. Last season, Haliburton and Tatum faced off in the Eastern Conference finals before Tatum went on to win the title, the first time one of Hanlen's protégés made it all the way to the finish line. Barring a late Knicks comeback from a 3-1 deficit on the Pacers, the streak will continue this season.
For Beal, who first convinced Hanlen to take on Tatum more than a decade ago, this moment shows how far their group has come.
'It's almost like we're teammates, essentially,' Beal said. 'For the most part, man, we support one another, and that's something that's hard to find.'
Tyrese Haliburton is unique in every single way as a playmaker. Because of that, so are his Indiana Pacers.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Andy Lyons, Michael Reaves, Joshua Gateley, Elsa / Getty Images)