Drew Hanlen was a junior at Webster Groves High School in St. Louis, working on his own basketball skills when another kid’s parents asked for some help. Little did he know that he’d be so good at training that word would get around and he’d become the guy for basketball workouts in the area.
It was only a matter of time before he got his big break, and that came in the form of a kid who showed up at his door by the name of Bradley Beal, a name that should be quite familiar to Toronto Raptors fans.
Beal worked with Hanlen and was impressed, trusting him through his career with the Florida Gators and even now with the Washington Wizards. As the shooting guard’s career trended upward, so did the trainer’s, receiving more calls from college players before the guys at the NBA level started getting in touch, too.
Now, Hanlen is considered one of best in the business of coaching NBA skills and is the CEO of Pure Sweat Basketball. He has worked with the likes of Joel Embiid, Gordon Hayward and Zach LaVine, and added the top basketball prospect in the world for 2019 in Canadian R.J. Barrett to the list this summer.
Making an appearance on the HoopsHype podcast with Alex Kennedy, Hanlen was quick to compare Barrett to one of the best rookies of the 2017-18 season.
“R.J. is one of the … to me, Jayson Tatum was one of the most professional 19-year-old kids I’ve ever had as far as walking in the gym, just handles himself like a pro, watches film like a pro and works like a pro. I put R.J. right behind Jayson in that category.
“You know, his dad playing professional basketball, Steve Nash being around in his life, he’s just learned from great people as far as how to handle himself like a pro. So, I think that he just comes into it and brings a certain level of toughness, he competes harder than anyone I’ve had at that age and he’s really good.”
Barrett, 18, will begin his highly anticipated college career with Duke this fall but has already upped his competition level significantly with the hope of hitting the NBA ground running. He played for Canada in its FIBA 2019 World Cup qualifiers alongside Cory Joseph, Kelly Olynyk and Dillon Brooks and showed he belonged there.
Hanlen said that he’s taken things a step further during their training together, even besting some NBA names — whose names remain undisclosed — in isolation.
“He was playing in the pick-up games with our NBA guys, not only holding his own but kind of shining at times, beat some of the NBA guys in 1-on-1. He’s ready to go.
“We worked a lot on his shot, that was his one, kind of, little question mark. He’s improved his shot a ton so I think that he’ll get better results at Duke than people have seen in the past. That’ll be an area of focus in pre-draft as well so that hopefully we can make that transition to the NBA similar to Jayson.”
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