Source: Foot Locker / Foot Locker
The secret is out on NBA trainer Chris Brickley. It was the former Knicks assistant coach who finessed those epic Black Ops scrimmages that featured Carmelo Anthony aka Hoodie Melo and a host of NBA elite, and now he’s repping clothing brand RAISED.
Formerly Director of Player Development with the Knicks (during the Derek Fisher era) he was in charge of working out players like Melo, JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. After developing numerous relationships via Melo, he left the Knicks after last season.
“[It was a] great summer. It was the first summer I wasn’t with the Knicks. It got a lot of buzz and now I want to keep that building,” Brickley recently told Hip-Hop Wired while at the Foot Locker flagship in NYC. “I never thought it would be that big first summer.”
Big is an understatement. The Black Ops runs, and videos, featured names like LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and the aforementioned Hoodie Melo putting in work. The clips of better basketball than you’ll ever catch at an All-Star game went viral, but Brickley was almost too busy to realize the spark he ignited.
“When you’re in the midst of it, to be honest with you, you don’t even think. You do the workouts, 11 o’clock at night comes, and then you have to text 30 guys to schedule the next 10 workouts for tomorrow and pick up,” says Brickley. “So it was a blur. The off-season got done, then the NBA season started, then I was like, Wow.”
Brickley’s phone is constantly buzzing with players trying to hone their skills to improve their game, make a roster or secure a max contract. He has plans to continue working with top NBA talent as well as upcoming college prospects (Oklahoma’s future NBA lottery pick Trae Young is on deck) and even high school phenoms.
He adds, “I just want to keep helping these guys help themselves.”
As for linking with RAISED—you might have caught Lonzo Ball rocking a tee in a Foot Locker spot—the connection was smoother than a Harden step back J.
Source: Foot Locker / Foot Locker
“The brand is dope,” says Brickley, who is bigging up the brand’s latest Varsity Collection. “It celebrates all the parts that have made basketball culture. From all the neighborhoods, and all the players and all the cultures. Everything that’s helped raise the culture of basketball and I like to think that basketball raised me,” says the former Divison 1 basketball player. “I think it was a perfect fit.”
The RAISED Varsity Collection, which features sweatshirts, hoodies, sweatpants, windbreakers, tees, hats and socks is now available at select Foot Lockers in NYC and Los Angeles.
Source: Foot Locker / Foot Locker
Source: Foot Locker / Foot Locker
Source: Foot Locker / Foot Locker
