Man in His Domain: Chris Brickley

There’s no place like home. If Chris Brickley clicked his heels three times, it would be in black-and-white Puma sneakers—size 12—and matching Gucci socks. No matter where he is, he wants to return here: his gym in the heart of Manhattan.

“This is my place,” he says, affectionately kicking the gleaming hardwood. “This is my love.”

The NBA trainer reigns over perhaps the most famous gym in the world. Dubbed the Arena, Brickley designed the basketball court to be his oasis. Before the pandemic hit, he spent up to 14 hours here on any given day. Carmelo Anthony, D’Angelo Russell and James Harden could be spotted running drills or in pickup games during the off-season. Rapper J. Cole works on his shot here. So does Meek Mill. Earlier this year, before coronavirus, Justin Bieber and Quavo challenged Drake to a friendly match at the Arena that overshadowed the All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game.

The space—nestled inside Summit, a luxury high-rise with a sweeping glass lobby, indoor waterfall and panoramic vistas—opened in February 2019. A grayscale New York City skyline wraps the gym walls, the neutral motif accented by the orange splash of basketball rims. It’s a calm respite from the hustle of Midtown. “This is a therapeutic place,” Brickley says.

The Arena is invite-only, but social media—especially during the NBA’s lengthy lockdown—has amplified the gym to legendary status. Brickley shares vignettes on Instagram that often go viral, aggregated by sports and celebrity media. TMZ even camps outside sometimes, ostensibly looking for a scoop or sound bite. Hip-hop usually pipes out of the gym speakers, but this afternoon it’s quiet and empty.

At 34, Chris Brickley is living a basketball fever dream. He was the first trainer to sign his own sneaker deal with Puma Hoops and the first trainer to be given a character in NBA2K20. “You keep working the way you did, the sky’s the limit,” his doppelgänger avatar says, in his voice. “Hit me up next time you want to work. I basically live in the gym.” Last year, Brickley starred in and executive-produced the ESPN+ docuseries Declared, about prospects trying to level up to the pros, which landed him a spot on national TV as a commentator during the 2019 NBA draft. When I saw him in Chicago this February for All-Star Weekend, his itinerary was dizzying: hanging with the owners of the New York Knicks, Minnesota Timberwolves and Sacramento Kings; a basketball clinic at a community center; brunch with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.

As his NBA2K20 character implies, Brickley really does live for work. He calls his gym his “girlfriend,” and his two phones don’t ever seem to stop buzzing. He has 1,200 unread texts and a deluge of direct messages.

“I feel like every week, there’s something new I could be doing,” he says in a pleasant New Hampshire accent. Hold on just a second—an A-list rapper is blowing him up. Okay, he’s back. He sleeps three, maybe four hours a night. Even during relaxed moments he’s often scribbling in the notebooks that are his constant companion, documenting his ideas, plans, hopes. It’s about pushing himself. “I need to keep doing things that are special,” he says. “I need to keep signing deals that no one’s ever done.”

Chris Brickley grew up wanting to hoop. As a kid, his favorite team was the Boston Celtics; he’d pretend he was Peter “Pistol Pete” Maravich on the court. At Trinity High School in Manchester, New Hampshire, Brickley was twice named athlete of the year. At six-foot-four, he played a couple of seasons at the University of Louisville before pivoting into coaching. Things lined up. He became the youngest Division I assistant coach in the NCAA in 2011 and joined the New York Knicks in player development in 2013. A wunderkind, he impressed the likes of coaching legend Phil Jackson, but beneath the veneer of success Brickley was struggling.

“Every year, I was living check to check,” he says. As he nurtured relationships with high-profile pros like Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith, he was also coping with low moments—eviction notices and bank overdrafts were a regular part of Brickley’s life. But by 2016 he was confident enough in his growing Rolodex to venture out on his own. Leaving a steady gig with the Knicks—what many would see as a dream job—seemed beyond risky to some.

“My family was mad. My friends didn’t understand. I didn’t have health insurance,” he says. “But I just truly believed in myself, knew that this was going to work out for me.”

Brickley’s gamble paid off. Today not only are his training talents in high demand, but his name as well: in April, he partnered with Chipotle for a namesake burrito bowl and in August, he announced a deal with streetwear reseller StockX. With nearly 1 million Instagram followers, he’s become a bona fide influencer. Before the pandemic hit and sent everyone inside, it was hard to walk down the street with him—be it in SoHo, Harlem or Chicago—without somebody vying for his attention: Fans who want to dap him up, take a selfie or just smile and softly murmur, “Hey, Brick,” in passing.

Building relationships—be it with brands, fans or basketball players—is the crux of Brickley’s style. Tactical skills aside, when he’s in training mode, it’s imperative that he connect with his player: What motivates him? What makes him tick? Friendship and trust are key. “You can know all the basketball stuff in the world, but if you don’t have a relationship with the players, they’re not going to really listen to you,” he tells me. Brickley also does his homework. As Kevin Porter Jr. of the Cleveland Cavaliers said on Declared, “He knows your game before you even step foot on the court. Before the first workout.”

“Chris has created a sacred space,” says Graham Betchart, a mental-skills coach who works with players like Aaron Gordon and Ben Simmons and has seen Brickley training. “It’s a safe place for these athletes to come be themselves. And for most of them, they don’t have many safe places.” It’s a judgment-free zone where men can let down their guard. Adrenaline pumping, it’s not uncommon to talk about life, relationships, whatever. Says Brickley, “They can come in here and they can be vulnerable. And they know no one’s judging them.”

Brickley is candid about his own tribulations, including his difficult childhood with a mother who lived with mental illnesses and died by suicide in 1993. “She was sick. I know she loved me and she was just going through hard times.” Several of his tattoos commemorate her. As an adult, he can empathize with what his mother must have gone through, and mental health awareness is a cause to which he is committed. Whenever he needs to untangle dark or complex feelings, he returns to his place of catharsis.

“There’s no medicine that makes me feel better. It’s the gym,” he says. “I guess if you really want to break it down, basketball has saved my life.”

The fact that Brickley is able to speak openly about his personal sorrows reflects something larger: Basketball stars are increasingly part of a paradigm shift in masculinity and mental health, going public about issues that previously would have remained private. Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers wrote a 2018 essay, “Everyone Is Going Through Something,” about his panic attack; it went viral. Love was inspired to open up in part thanks to DeMar DeRozan, then of the Toronto Raptors, who had come forward about his depression and anxiety. “It’s one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we’re all human at the end of the day,” DeRozan told the Toronto Star.

The loss of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant earlier this year shook the world of basketball. The league collectively grieved, with men in the spotlight expressing their pain and emotion. “Today is one of the saddest days in my lifetime,” said Dwyane Wade on Instagram. Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks broke down in his mother’s arms before a game. Countless others shared their devastation on social media. For Brickley, it was poignant. “I see the players’ vulnerable stages. It really touches me when you start seeing them do it publicly.”

Normally, Chris Brickley lives for summer. When the NBA season is over, his gym comes alive—he anticipates it for months. But this year the coronavirus pandemic changed all that. In March, New York City shut down gyms, along with pretty much everything else, and the trainer’s plans were put on hold.

“It hit me crazy because this is usually my time,” he tells me via Zoom in July. “This is usually my busy time, doing 10 workouts a day, seven days a week. It’s tough.”

Brickley has been in the gym intermittently during lockdown, hammering out new drills and occasionally doing socially distanced workouts. College star Cole Anthony, who declared for the 2020 draft, was one of the few players who came in for a late-night session.

As the NBA tests its grand quarantine experiment at Disney World inside the so-called bubble, the new normal has been a challenge for Brickley, and not just in terms of his training dropping off. “When you’re a social person and you thrive off of other people’s energy, and you don’t have that, you have to figure out other ways to get it.”

So the trainer is funneling his energy into new creative endeavors, including a compilation of workout anthems called Welcome to the Grind. “Every time we work out, music is such a big thing,” he says. Brickley envisions the album, which he describes as a hip-hop update of Jock Jams, as a way for fans to soundtrack their sessions like the pros and to reproduce a slice of the Arena’s atmosphere inside their own homes. Executive-produced by Dave East and Lil Durk, Welcome to the Grind will feature tracks from artists that Brickley has forged friendships with through the years; Meek Mill, Travis Scott and Justin Bieber are likely contributors.

Brickley is targeting an early 2021 release for the project; hopefully, that time frame coincides with a return to some semblance of normalcy for the country. Until that point, everything is up in the air. Like the rest of us, he’s just figuring out how to ride out the pandemic. But for now, you can find him at his gym.