During a late-winter lunch in downtown Phoenix, Phil Beckner passed a book along to Mikal Bridges. It was titled, “Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable,” and written by Michael Jordan’s former trainer, Tim S. Grover.
Beckner, a private basketball trainer based in Phoenix, hoped Bridges, then a Suns rookie, would comb through the reading material over the final months of his rookie season. But Bridges immediately began flooding Beckner’s cellphone with quotes and photos of the book’s pages, virtually highlighting passages absorbed during a Suns road trip. By the third day, Beckner received a simple message from Bridges: “Bro, I’m done with the book.”
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“I’ve given that book to other players where it’s taken them two, three, four months to read,” Beckner told The Athletic.“It was like, ‘This guy is special, and he’s really committed to getting better at his craft.’”
Bridges’ swift page-turning foreshadowed how he would attack his offseason workouts. After gaining between eight and 10 pounds of muscle, his arms are now long but not gangly. He has established a more grounded, fluid shooting motion and a tighter handle.
Following a strong rookie season, Bridges will, the Suns hope, use these physical gains to make another leap as part of Phoenix’s young core.
“It leaves the door wide open for him to just take off and do some really special things,” Beckner said.
As Monty Williams was introduced as the Suns’ new coach in May, Bridges looked on from the side of Talking Stick Resort Arena’s entry pavilion. Bridges was naturally still in town weeks after the regular season’s conclusion. He says he is “not really big on traveling,” preferring to remain stationary “so nothing messes up” throughout his meticulously constructed workout regimen.
Executing that plan was a collaborative effort between Beckner and the Suns’ new coaching and strength and conditioning staffs. The mission: build on Bridges’ foundation as a versatile wing who led all rookies in steals (1.6 per game) while often tasked with guarding the opposing teams best player, and averaged 8.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 30 minutes per game while shooting 33.5 percent from 3-point distance.
During Williams’ daily walk to his office, he often saw Bridges carrying weights down the hallway. Bridges’ most challenging days included rapid 25-minute sessions, going 30 seconds on and 20 seconds off through six rounds of exercises including deadlifts, dumbbell rows, bench presses and goblet squats.
“First time I did it, I was legit on the floor laying down,” Bridges said. “I didn’t want to get up.”
Beckner, whose most notable client is All-NBA guard Damian Lillard, zeroed in on Bridges’ shot and ballhandling.
They built a balanced shooting base, smooth motion and stamina. Bridges sometimes shot 3-pointers for five consecutive minutes. Other times, Beckner fired perfect passes at Bridges in the corner for one minute, terrible passes for the next minute and a mixture of both for a final minute.
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“We’re throwing the ball two feet above his head,” Beckner said. “So he has to catch a bad pass, reorganize his body, get back to that foundation, that base and balance and fluid motion to shoot a shot.
“As much as guys work on conditioning in the offseason, we would work on being conditioned to shoot the ball. A lot of that is conditioning with mind, body and really tight, strong arms. Being conditioned to shoot the same shot, the same way, consistently at the NBA level.”
Precise dribbling and passing was another focus, with emphasis on what Beckner calls coordinated “ball-body movement” required due to Bridges’ 7-1 wingspan. Before individual summer sessions with the Suns staff, teammate Cam Johnson (who also works with Beckner) noticed Bridges continued to implement a hard-dribbling routine on his own, which made Beckner “fist-pump the air.”
“He always talked about his arms burning,” Beckner said of Bridges. “That’s something that we really wanted to increase: his strength and stability and stamina with his handle and passing.”
Bridges’ official on-court work with teammates and coaches was delayed, as he missed training camp and the preseason opener with a bone bruise in his knee from a “normal” jump-shot landing. But since then, Bridges’ summer work has carried over to game settings.
Beckner noticed the ball popping quicker into Bridges’ hands and improved posture while dribbling. A forceful and-1 finish in last week’s preseason finale against Denver was a prime example of that ball-body movement. A fadeaway pull-up jumper off the dribble at Portland was a replication of one of their foundational drills for rhythm and timing. After the Suns’ win over the Trail Blazers, Lillard sent Beckner a text message to compliment Bridges’ 5-of-7 shooting performance (including 2 of 4 from beyond the arc).
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Bridges, meanwhile, feels faster while cutting, coming off screens and running in transition. His increased strength was on display when he ripped the ball and dunked against Portland, a finish Bridges said “would have been cleaner” had Blazers big man Hassan Whiteside not “literally held me down, so I couldn’t even get up as high as I wanted.”
“Last year, I wouldn’t have been able to do that,” Bridges said.
Bridges’ next task is to maintain, but not overwork himself during the season’s grind. He acknowledges he takes “a lot of pride” in being the only Suns player to play all 82 games last season, even fighting through elbow discomfort that he hid from his agent, mother and girlfriend over the final 20 games or so.
“My mom still yells at me to this day,” Bridges said.
Williams, though, expects Bridges’ diligent summer weightlifting regimen will allow him to recover faster this season. The coach added Bridges has already passed an important mental crossroads, in which rookies match up against opponents who are just as tall and much stronger for the first time. Bridges compared his increased comfort level this season to walking into the first day of school as a sophom*ore instead of a freshman.
And after everything Beckner has observed in Bridges since passing along that initial reading material, the private trainer knows better than to put a ceiling on Bridges’ development this season and beyond.
“One of the best things I saw (during the preseason) was his mentality, his maturity and his security as a player,” Beckner said. “He looked like it wasn’t his second year in the league.”
(Photo of Mikal Bridges Oct. 12 in Portland: Sam Forencich / NBAE via Getty Images)
