The league was far different when the Sacramento Kings drafted Brian Grant No. 8 overall in the 1994 Draft. At 6’9 and 250 pounds, players his size didn’t face the same expectations that they do today in terms of putting the ball on the floor and stepping out beyond the three-point line. Guys like Grant were brought in to do the blue-collar work, like hitting the boards and playing hard-nose defense.
He was exactly the type of player everyone wants on their team, and that’s how Grant carved out his niche in the NBA over 12 seasons with five different organizations. It was a journey that gave him the opportunity to play under legendary coach Pat Riley and saw him rise to the enormous challenge of defending all-time greats like Shaquille O’Neal.
But Grant’s basketball career isn’t the only thing that defines him. During his NBA journey, Grant had already turned his attention to several philanthropic pursuits, becoming a spokesperson for the Ronald McDonald House and holding free summer basketball camps in Portland and his hometown of Georgetown, Ohio.
In 2008, Grant was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Ever since, Grant has used his money, his influence, and the Brian Grant Foundation to spread awareness, to ease the suffering of those living with the illness, and to work toward finding a cure. In his new autobiography, Rebound: Soaring in the NBA, Battling Parkinson’s, and Finding What Really Matters (out April 6), Grant shares his experiences of how he’s learned to thrive through healthy habits and the lessons he’s learned from a pro sports career that spanned more than a decade.
We caught up with Grant recently to discuss the book, his former team in Portland where he still resides, and much more.
I was curious about what the process of writing a book was like for you. It’s been a little over a decade since you retired from basketball and first received your diagnosis. What was it like looking back on your life and career now that you’re a bit more removed from those experiences?
It was sort of re-educating myself on the things that I’ve been through, things that I tend to forget or am not willing to think about. It kind of forced me to take a look at some things: relationship with my ex-wife — I should say ex-wives — my kids, my basketball career. Because it seems like the farther out I’d get, the more it seems like a dream, like it didn’t happen. And starting the process with (co-author) Ric Bucher, kind of digging up things, trying to remember things, just kind of brought everything back to the forefront. And at times, it was very rewarding, and at other times, it was emotional to think that I’ve got a certain way or I acted a certain way in different times in my life, which I regret. And then there’s some things that I don’t regret and I don’t take back.
So much of the book is about not just learning to live with Parkinson’s, but to thrive as well. When you think about people who are newly diagnosed and facing the daunting task of how to move forward in their lives, what was the impulse for you in terms of what you wanted to impart from your experience onto people who are just figuring out how to live with it?
I think I was trying to figure out how to live anyway, because I had retired from basketball. I was about to start going through a divorce. And there were just other major life changes that were going on that kind of softened the blow a little bit when I went to OHSU and was diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s. It was kind of one of those things like, “What next? Come on. That’s three. We can find a fourth thing to deal with.” And once I kind of got through that little phase, which was short lived, then I was kind of left with, “Okay. What do I do? How do I approach this?” And just from my career and everything, I was able to lean on people like Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali’s wife, getting advice.
And then not just those two because they’re famous, just other people, regular people who were suffering from the disease and were going through similar issues, symptoms, or who had been through them and telling me what I might expect to happen. Those people also helped me a great deal because I realized that I had a platform and to have this platform and just let it go to waste and hide in the darkness was not my way of doing things. And so me knowing Michael J. Fox, the Ali’s, and then everybody else just gave me the strength to step out and say, “All right, let me see what I can do for the Parkinson’s community with this platform that I’ve been given.”
You’ve mentioned how easy it is to fall into the mindset of how much Parkinson’s takes away from your life, but you’ve also talked about all the different ways it’s added to your life. Why was it important for you to shift that perspective?
Look, I mean, at the time I was thinking that I was losing so much, which I was. But every man or woman who goes through change, goes through loss. And being able to open up into this new world that I didn’t ask for, I didn’t want, and being able to embrace it and then having the people around me embrace it gave me a sense of purpose. And once I was diagnosed with that and I accepted it, then I knew that at least one part of my life was going to be committed to helping other people with this disease.
Being an NBA player, you have to fight so hard for everything, you have to be so mentally and physically tough. How do you think the rigors of being a professional athlete helped you for this fight?
From one aspect, it helped me to have the courage to just know that you can do this, you’ve done things that I would consider way tougher than this. So it kind of gave me the courage to know that I could work hard and fight. But at the same time, I had to grow into knowing that this isn’t a quick battle, this isn’t like going up against Shaq or Tim Duncan for a night and then they go away. This is a battle for the rest of your life. And I’ve had to take my lumps because of that. Because this isn’t a sprint. This is a lifelong marathon.
Sometimes, you’re going to be ahead, sometimes you’re going to be behind, but you got to stay in the race. And a couple of times, I felt like dropping out of the race because I felt like I was doing everything right, getting everything together, and this would happen or a new symptom would pop up, and then it just kind of set me back. And sometimes you can get like, “Well, what the hell? What am I doing?” And what you’re doing is, you’re just staying in the race. You’re staying in the fight.
In the book, you talk about your time with Pat Riley and the Heat. He was notorious for those grueling workout regimens, and just kind of an interesting character, in general. What was it like thinking back on those experiences?
They were good and bad. The good was that he pushed me to a limit that I never thought I could go to and be at. And that was a good side. And the bad side for me was just thinking that … I don’t know how to say it. Thinking that it wasn’t beneficial at the time because you’re going through so much pain and so much like, “Wow. I can’t believe I’m really working this hard.” But that bad also turned back into a good because he was somebody who would push you, but he’d also do things to celebrate the team for their hard work and be there for you. And once he trusts you and knows that he can count on you, he’s going to be there for you for life. I mean, he is definitely the best.
I played for some really good coaches and respect them all, but my experience with him, it was special. It was tough, but he showed me that I could be tough. Not doing a couple of little drills here and there, but doing it for four straight hours, and we putting in extra work and coming back doing it each and every day.
That kind of intensity obviously takes a toll on the body, but you also talk in the book about how it helped you discover naturopathic medicine. How has that influenced the way you approach your health now?
Well, I’ll tell you. There’d be days where I’d come home, and before I met Felipe [Grant’s naturopathic doctor], I couldn’t sleep, I was so sore from working out. And a lot of players go through the same thing. But once I met Felipe and he convinced me to let him work on me with needles and massage therapy, that was it for me because he was the real deal. I mean, he knew his stuff. And so after working with him, it made me more open to newer ideas rather than just the old school stuff.
And then he was the first one that diagnosed me way before anybody ever did. When I found out that I had Parkinson’s at OHSU with Dr. Neff, who was the head of neurology, I told him I was doing some naturopathic work. He kind of discouraged me from doing it. But then after a while, when I’d come back, [he was] telling me I wasn’t progressing. I was digressing. I looked better than I did three or four months ago, the last time I went in. And so he kind of just went along with it, allowed me to do it. That particularly was a good thing because like I said, most doctors won’t even work with you if you continue to doing stuff like that. But I think it’s a good mixture between both that really helped.
There’s a benefit to doing both things, but to take one or the other out completely, I think, would be a mistake. When anyone who has any type of a disease, neurological or what have you, just explore Eastern medicine versus Western medicine and take the best from both and use them. See what happens.
This is something us mere mortals can’t even begin to imagine, but you had the unenviable task of defending Shaq in his prime. What are your memories of that, and how do you think he would fair in today’s game?
Are we talking about the Shaq in Orlando?
I guess Orlando up until early 2000s, as well.
He came to the league one year before me. And I thought those were unstoppable years because Shaq was the seven-footer who thought he was a point guard. He thought he was agile and he was. To be seven-feet and be so strong, when he wanted to take off on you, he was going to take off on you. He didn’t get winded. He could run for days, and he’d break back boards. And it was just one of those days where you just try to say, “Alright. I just don’t want to get embarrassed.”
But then when he went to L.A., he had more of a team around him. We all tend to get … now I wouldn’t say lazy, but trying to put on muscle, things like that, that can slow you down. Then it gave me a little bit of an avenue to at least try to not stop him, but make stops throughout the game by running in and doing things like that. When he thinks he’s unstoppable, he is unstoppable. When he’s got his way in and he wants to make a move, best to just let him make that move or he’s going to post you. That’s how I look at it.
If you ask him, he might be like, “Nah, you can’t stop me.” And he’s right, I couldn’t stop him at the time. I could take one or two stops and be like, “I had two out of 20.”
Right. That’s a good day.
Yeah.
What do you think about the way the game has evolved for players your size and the demands we put on them in terms of being versatile? How has that changed from your era?
It’s changed a lot, in my view. I mean, I’m not somebody who watches games every day, but when I do watch them it blows my mind that I see seven-footers stepping out, taking threes confidently and hitting them. I think I took six three-pointers in my whole career and maybe made one or two of them. But I wouldn’t even dream of going outside that three-point line because I know if I did, more than likely I was coming out of the game. But it was a different game. It was more power.
I don’t know how well I would’ve thrived in today’s league. Maybe I would’ve made the adjustments. Maybe somebody would’ve worked on me and worked on my shot and what have you. But from what I see, I’m like, man, I’d have been fouled out by the third quarter, for sure. I don’t think I could’ve thrived in today’s game, but that’s not to say that it’s not an interesting game because I think it puts the demand on one through five to all be versatile. It’s not like I can just sit in the middle and bang a little bit and go down every once in a while. You got to be able to step out, get that three-pointer or that long jumper that they’re going to give you.
