Meet The Man Who Brought The Pacers To The NBA

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Barbell snatches, squats, bench presses.

These are just a few of the toolsShawn Windle has at his disposal. Head coaches have X's and O's, strength coaches haveeccentric movements and Olympic lifts. One sees a powerful post move. The other sees thepower cleans done to make that post move stronger.

As the head strength andconditioning coach for the Indiana Pacers, Windle is the man responsible for putting themettle and the muscle behind coach Frank Vogel's smash-mouth brand of basketball.

"You have to have the right guys to embrace that style of play," Windle says. "Itstarts in the brains and the heart. Our workouts are designed so that the players have tofight to get through them. Being strong and being tough starts in the mind."

At this point, calling the Pacers a physical team is beyond redundant, like sayingkiller whales are killers. Yet, as the Pacers pummel their way through round after roundof the NBA playoffs, members of the opposing teams they have just steamrolled or are aboutto encounter can't get away from that word.

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"We know we're going to be in for abattle," New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler said before their series against Indiana."We've got to be prepared physically to match their play..."

"They'll try toput me on the floor, maybe,'' LeBron James said in an interview before Miami's seriesagainst Indiana. "They'll be physical with me... The word is you've got to beat up theHeat to beat them. And every team has tried to do that."

That quote from Jamesbrings us right up to the present day, where the Pacers are in a dogfight of a series withthe Miami Heat.

"You never know who you're going to face each round of theplayoffs," Windle says. "Of course we might be eyeing a showdown with the Heat in theEastern Conference finals early in the season, but it's never guaranteed. We don't trainin the off-season to play against certain teams or certain guys. We try to get everyone asstrong as we possibly can. We lift heavy weights throughout the season to maintain thatstrength."***Roy Hibbert likes to lift weights after regular-seasongames. Paul George likes to lift weights before games. David West, it seems, will liftweights anytime and anywhere.

"David is an animal in the weight room," Windlesays. "He's our strongest guy for sure. Part of my job is to visit players after theseason to check on their workouts, and when I went down to see David, I was amazed at whatI saw. I had never seen a guy work that hard in the off-season. He was putting in maximumeffort on everything."

While most guys leave the team after the season endswith a laundry list of exercise instructions, West is simply given one objective as heleaves his exit interview: "Keep being David West."

"He doesn't require a lotof external motivation," Windle says, chuckling at the understatement.

TylerHansbrough is another Pacer who has no problem with motivation.

"Tyler is justso strong," he says. "He's done so much strength work in the past. During the season wealmost do a slight de-emphasis on lifting and add in more stretching and correctiveexercises for him. He's very in tune with his body."

Windle runs through theroster, citing how impressed he is with the hard work his guys have put in throughout theseason.

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"Sam Youngis one of our strongest guys. Gerald Green and Paul George, in terms of pure athleticism,are off the charts. DJ Augustine is in the weight room almost every single day," he says."And what Roy [Hibbert] has done is fantastic. When he came into the league, he had someexcess body fat that we had to work off of him.

"Our previous coach wanted torun up and down the floor more, so we got his weight down. Now, with Coach Vogel, we'redoing a 180. The last few years we've put quality weight on his body and he is back up toa solid 270 pounds."

At 7-2, 270 pounds, Hibbert is the throwback big man thatNBA opponents can't match up with. But his size would mean nothing if he didn't have thepower to go along with it.

"We treat strength as a skill," Windle says. "We try to develop it every single day. Iwant our guys to get used to handling heavy weights. We don't do anything fancy. Highpulls. Bench press. Pull-ups. Rows. What makes us successful is our guys' willingness topour their heart and determination into both the basketball court and the weightroom."
***Windle won the 2012 NBA Strength and ConditioningCoach of the Year Award, and since body evolution and muscle development can often takeyears to be fully realized, the fruits of his labor may be paying off more this seasonthan last.

"From my standpoint, I'm so excited to watch the transformation inso many of our guys," he says. "From nutrition to weight lifting to rehabilitating, everygoal we set in front of these guys they do their best to reach."

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The end result of that goal is thephysicality the rest of the NBA can't stop talking about. And to think, there might be farfewer bumps and bruises and black-and-blues around the Eastern Conference if it hadn'tbeen for a loose connection between Windle and Larry Bird's old physical therapist.

In fact, the ice vendor for the Miami Heat should be thanking Larry Bird, thePacer president. So should the guy who sells the Knicks bandages and the Atlanta Hawks'massage therapist. And anyone else in the league who has seen business pick up as a resultof the damage inflicted by the Pacers' powerful style of play.

"I was workingas a strength coach at Rutgers University when the Pacers called to see if I'd beinterested in the job," Windle says. "The connection was through a friend of mine who wasLarry Bird's old physical therapist."

Eight years later, a small connectionhas given birth to one of the strongest teams in pro basketball.

"You can'thelp but sit here and realize that we have an advantage in the paint on most nights,"Windle says. "When we see a guy make an athletic play or outhustle and outmuscle someoneon the other team, for me, I just see all that hard work paying off. They know what's atstake. They know they're fighting for a trip to the NBA Finals."

The questionthen becomes, is any team strong enough to fight back and win? -- Jon Finkel is theauthor of TheDadvantage: Stay In Shape On No Sleep With No Time And No Equipment.

Follow him on Twitter @Jon_Finkel.


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