Changes Brandin Podziemski made to play all 82 Warriors games – NBC Sports Bay Area & California
INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Brandin Podziemski‘s unique plan final offseason was to keep in San Francisco. The first choice was nixed, so I pivoted to dwelling. Podziemski’s subsequent plan was to return and get his summer season work performed within the Milwaukee space, coming off his second NBA season, which ended within the second spherical of the playoffs.
From Plan A to Plan B, Podziemski lastly landed on the proper Plan C for him to keep away from one impediment: Distractions.
His father, John, used a favourite film of theirs for inspiration. “Remember how Rocky trained in Rocky IV?” he’d ask his son. “All focus, no distractions.”
The change in route helped put Podziemski on the trail of being one among 18 NBA gamers in 2025-26 to play all 82 games in his third season, and the one one on the Warriors.
Podziemski performed 74 games as a rookie, however that quantity dropped to 64 final season, making well being and longevity a brand new most important aim of his. Like the Warriors did for Buddy Hield final season, and Kevon Looney on the finish of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 common seasons, Podziemski acquired a loud ovation from coaches and teammates within the visiting locker room Sunday evening in LA after the regular-season finale, a sport he limped off the ground within the first quarter from a knee to his thigh, returning within the second.
“Not easy to do these days, especially with the pace and the space and the ground these guys cover every single night,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr mentioned. “It’s one of Brandin’s best qualities, really, is that he’s there for us every single day, every single night. He’s just really durable, he loves to play. That’s quite a feat.”
Instead of staying in San Francisco or choosing the Midwest, Podziemski spent a big chunk of his offseason coaching in Orlando. The preliminary cause was the climate, and never for days spent tanning on the seaside.
Podziemski missed games final season due to a damaged nostril, belly pressure and a again damage. He then underwent two surgical procedures final summer season. Podziemski had surgical procedure on his left wrist in late May, after which simply two weeks later, he had surgical procedure to restore a core muscle damage.
Staying stagnant is not how Podziemski is wired. Picking Orlando allowed him to verify the containers he wanted to, one step at a time.
“I think really just to first ramp up my conditioning with the heat, the humidity,” Podziemski defined to NBC Sports Bay Area. “Just wanted to be somewhere warm where I could, not catch up but knowing I was behind the eight ball, not being able to do anything May, June, July because of my surgeries. It was somewhere I could get back into shape quickly. So that was the place, and it worked.”
Surrounding himself with the proper folks additionally performed a giant half in Podziemski’s focus.
He wasn’t in a rugged Siberian cabin to isolate himself. But like Rocky primarily solely bringing Apollo Creed’s former coach and his personal brother-in-law, Paulie, with him to put together for Ivan Drago, aside from just a few buddies who play abroad to be a part of drills and on-court work, Podziemski solely introduced his capturing coach, Dustin VanLieu, and a nutritionist one among his brokers discovered as Warriors power coaches popped in right here and there for exercises over a six-week interval.
Learning about his physique grew to become a research course of types for Podziemski. As a sophomore at Santa Clara, he missed only one sport, so well being was by no means a query going into the pre-draft course of just a few years in the past. He then could not perceive why he had again issues as a rookie.
It seems he did not. An MRI revealed his ache had nothing to do together with his again. Podziemski started firing questions left and proper to discover solutions. The solutions started in his hips.
“When your hips are tight, they start pulling on your hamstrings, your quad, your groin,” Podziemski says. “So that led to the groin stuff and studying that and the way it all connects and the way to preserve issues unfastened and flowy, after which strengthening your core. I believe it all stems from that as properly.
“I’ve been able to learn all that over three years now and that helped me play all 82.”
Someone who places their physique on the ground as a lot as Podziemski is sure to be shelved right here and there, dusting off bumps and bruises and hoping not to be sidelined for too lengthy. The hard-nosed guard led the NBA in fees drawn as a rookie, completed third in his second 12 months and second in Year 3. The greatest means really is availability for a group that entered the season with the NBA’s second-oldest roster.
There wasn’t one Drago in Podziemski’s means. Maybe there wasn’t 82, however getting by an NBA season is tuned to stepping within the ring for 12 rounds in opposition to a steroid-popping, pulverizing machine. Podziemski took his hits and received again up repeatedly, elevating his fingers in victory on the last bell.
No distractions, one singular focus. Podziemski made his physique a guide to be taught from with every web page he turned, and now he can proudly open the doorways of the All 82 Club.
