The Pacers' Glenn Robinson has a powerful work ethic.
by Ben Smith
Practice is long minutes over for the Indiana Pacers this warmish December afternoon, but still the shots are going up out there, rising and falling in flawless net-rustling arcs. Glenn Robinson III, a young man with a ringing Hoosier name and a profile you have seen before, is working on his craft. It is a sight as familiar as the name and the profile.
Now the basketball is in his soft hands again, and he rises. Lets it fly. The net whispers secretly.
Come to Bankers Life Fieldhouse at just about any time of any day and you will see this, and there is no hyperbole in that. There are times, Robinson says, when he arrives late in one day and shoots until the next day. No, really.
“I'll be in the gym until 2 in the morning sometimes,” he says.
It's an old-school work ethic instilled first by his high school coach at Lake Central, Dave Milausnic, who used to roust the young Robinson out of bed at 5:30 in the morning to go to the gym. His whole freshman year, Robinson recalls, he “hated it.” But by the time the next year came around?
“I was beating him to the gym,” Robinson laughs.
It was the only way he knew to get better at a game that was at once his birthright and his impossible dream. The birthright part, of course, came from his namesake father, Glenn Robinson, the Big Dog of Purdue lore who was the first pick in the NBA draft in 1994. The impossible dream part began on his birthday, when he was born three months premature to a Purdue freshman named Shantelle Clay, and spent the first two months of his life in an incubator.
But even then, the game was with him. Joining him in the incubator was a Purdue mini-basketball.
“So, yeah, I think it was just kind of meant to be,” Robinson says. “I don't know. It's just kind of crazy how things work out sometimes.”
How it worked out for Robinson, who weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces at birth, was that, by the age of 3, he was playing basketball at the Hammond YMCA. And by the time Milausnic and Robinson's AAU coach Wayne Brumm were done with him, he was a high school blue-chipper who stood 6-foot-7, committed to Michigan and, as a senior, finished fourth in the Indiana Mr. Basketball voting–behind Gary Harris, Yogi Ferrell and Kellen Dunham.
Robinson played two years at Michigan and then declared for the NBA, where the Minnesota Timberwolves made him the 40th pick in the 2014 draft. He played 25 games for Minnesota last season and 10 more for the Philadelphia 76ers after the Timberwolves waived him.
Then, on July 25, the Pacers signed him to a three-year deal. The Indiana kid was going to Indiana's NBA team, selected to do so by Pacers president Larry Bird, Indiana icon.
“It's crazy. It's an unbelievable experience,” says Robinson, who passed on a chance to play in the 2013 FIBA Under-19 World Championships so he could attend a pair of skills academies for wing players. “I tell everyone all the time, just playing in Indiana gives me tremendous confidence.”
He's also a perfect fit for a Pacers team that has undergone a dramatic rebuild this season, shifting to a free-flowing, up-tempo style that puts a premium on shooting and athleticism and takes advantage of star Paul George's skill set.
Robinson's, too. All that shooting, all that work ethic, had him shooting 52 percent overall and 43 percent from the 3-point arc through the Pacers first 15 games, during which he averaged 12 minutes and contributed mightily to a deep bench that had the new-look. Pacers tied for third in the Eastern Conference through mid-December, a game-and-a-half behind first-place Cleveland.
“We've had some good benches here,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel says. “But this bench we have is strong. It's just strong. You don't always have that. Most coaches don't have that–the luxury, if you want to call it that, of really truly believing in all of your guys.”
Easy to do when you look out there, long minutes after practice has ended, and see a Glenn Robinson still shooting, shooting, shooting.
“I want to be great at the game and I want to keep continuing to get better,” Robinson says. “There's always something I can do better by being in the gym. So that's what I do.”
