SI All-American: The Professor talks COVID-19
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00And the last three and a half month basketball players on every level have been trying to scramble
00:04to keep their skills fine-tuning amidst this COVID-19 pandemic. And so to kind of help them
00:10out, we brought in the most famous outside baller in the world, since all of them are
00:14kind of going outside. That's Grayson Boucher, aka The Professor. What's going on, my man?
00:20What's happening, man? Good morning.
00:22I'm good, man. I'm good. Appreciate you joining us early for you on the West Coast. But I gotta
00:28pick your brain a little bit. All these guys are kind of being forced to go outside with
00:33gyms being closed and everything like that. I know you're king of the outside court.
00:38What would you say is the most important rule when you're training outside?
00:45When you're playing outside, first and foremost, if I'm going to play outside,
00:50I want to make sure I got some decent shoes on that aren't too worn. And then make sure my
00:55court that I'm playing on doesn't have gravel or isn't too slippery, because sometimes that
00:59can be dangerous. You know what I mean? And then for me, it also depends what age you are. Like
01:03me coming into my late 30s, I try to make sure and not play full court outside. I play half
01:07court outside if I'm working out. So it's better to train than to kind of play pickup?
01:16Well, I can't even say that. If you look at my YouTube channel, I'm playing pickup. A lot of
01:19times it's half court games. Workout in, if I was striving for cardio, I would go hit the track.
01:26Yeah. Okay. What would you say is the big difference? I mean, I could imagine a few,
01:30but from your perspective, what would you say is the biggest
01:33you're training outside as opposed to on the hardwood inside?
01:37Yeah. So it's going to be slipperier in general. I know every court's different. It's going to be
01:43harder to shoot for dang sure, right? You got the wind. A lot of times you have double rims,
01:48quadruple rims. So that's going to be a challenge. I always felt like the outdoor game was more
01:53physical just because it always seemed like a little bit less conventional with referees
01:58and different things like that. So I think you're always up against those challenges when you play
02:03outside. I always considered those things good things though, because I figured if you could
02:08train through that by the time you get in the gym where there's great grip and there's zero wind
02:14and you're on a single rim, like glass backward, it's a lot easier to do things. So I feel like
02:20you prep yourself with a harder setting. You'll be better off when you have an easier setting.
02:25That makes sense for sure. Now to that point, everybody from Ron James to Katie to AI,
02:32they've all come back now after they've been established, they've all come back to the blacktop
02:37outside to kind of prove themselves there. Do you think this kind of correlates with the training
02:44outside? Like maybe it's like the old saying, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere
02:48in regards to New York, but is it kind of hand in hand with playing outside? And do you think
02:53that could translate over into better things when the season starts? I do. I mean, especially for
03:01youth, you know what I mean? I think for me growing up playing outside, it taught me a lot.
03:09Being a small player, it made me learn how to still get to the rack. It made me learn how to
03:15gauge angles on the backboard, you know what I mean, for bank shots. I think that's bigger
03:19because a lot of times you got to use the backboards, too much wind, it's too hard to
03:22shoot outside. Half the time I'm playing with a ball that the leather is completely almost
03:28worn off like the top layer. So it's a lot harder to handle the basketball. And so in doing that,
03:33you know, like I said, a lot of those things were harder, definitely prepped me
03:37for the game when I'm playing indoors with a nice basketball on a nice floor,
03:41nice hoop, no wind and all those things. So yeah, I think so. Absolutely.
03:47So do you expect players to potentially make greater strides now that they've had this time
03:52outside? You know, I don't know. I guess it's hard to say because
04:00you would hope they put the practice in. But then again, I don't know that people didn't stop
04:07playing outside because of other reasons. You know, I think they stopped playing outside because
04:11of like video games and that sort of nature. I do think AAU played a part in that, which obviously
04:18was put on hold. So you would hope people got some work in the driveway or at the park or wherever.
04:23But yeah, I mean, I would hope for improvement through it. I guess it's really hard to say
04:27because nobody knows like, are we going to quarantine again? How long is COVID going to
04:31last? When is the vaccine coming? I think there's a lot of uncertainty of our future.
04:35So it's kind of hard to say. Absolutely. Definitely something we'll be keeping an eye
04:39on. Professor, definitely appreciate your time this morning. Hey, thank you, man. Appreciate you having me on.