Mental training is important to work on for not only an athlete’s game, but for their everyday life. Mental training improves self confidence, helps with stress management, increases drive and motivation, improves concentration, increases mental toughness and so much more.

“[Aaron is] kind of the key piece to their team from a standpoint of he guards the best player and he can take advantage of mismatches and do various things. He can create, he can play make,” Packie said. “I think Aaron's finding his rhythm with Denver, and he's going to have a big year. I think he's worked his tail off, and I think he's ready to take it up another notch.”

During Packie’s three-day visit to Brooklyn, Packie was able to get a few workouts in with Edwards. The two were able to utilize the National Basketball Players Association’s gym in New York City the day before and the day after the season opener against the New Orleans Pelicans. Packie said it was a quick and productive trip.

“If you give good energy, I realized that they'll obviously reciprocate it. They are there for a reason, they want to get better. I just want to make sure that I'm utilizing their time to the best of my ability to make sure that they are getting something when they walk away from it every single day,” Hamilton said. “I'm enjoying it. I have high hopes for the future, and I just want to keep it going.”

Ito said being back in the gym has been incredible and she did not realize how much she missed basketball until she stepped foot in the facility. She has enjoyed seeing familiar faces come into the gym, meeting the new trainers, and seeing how much UPB has evolved since she trained at the facility a few years back. We are excited to have Ito on the UPB Team and to see her get back around the game she grew up loving.

Two members of the Unlimited Potential Basketball family, Josh Friedkin and Mikayla Cowling, recently made their way back overseas to Israel to play professional basketball. We are so proud of all their accomplishments so far in their career, and we are excited to see how they will perform in their upcoming seasons.

“I hope that in my last year here, I'm able to kind of leave a legacy almost. So like back to back to back Final Fours, hopefully two for three on Nattys, that is [what] I want in my senior year,” Jones said. “I want to have me personally and my class, the Funky Four, kind of cement our names in the Stanford legacy, that we came in [and] we changed the ways, like they hadn't won a Natty in 30 years. We went to three Final Fours, we went undefeated in the Pac, like that's unheard of. That's what I kind of want to leave after my senior year.”

During her overall time at UPB, Ho explained that she has definitely seen a difference in her game, and has enjoyed working with the trainers at UPB. Ho said she would recommend the foundation to other basketball players because being at the gym has “been really good, and my favorite part is all the coaches [that] are supporting me. They encourage me and always tell me what to do to be better.”

Davis has been at UPB for almost three weeks now and has been involved in both the group and private training at the facility. When he is working with an athlete, first and foremost he wants the athlete to enjoy their time and enjoy the grind that they are going through. He also wants to help produce well-rounded athletes and does this through his philosophy centered on “simplicity with detail.”

“It's been amazing because I haven't really been working anybody out or been on the basketball court as a trainer in a very long time [since] I'm overseas and I'm doing more administrative work,” Savickaitė said. “It feels really good to be back on court everyday, going to the gym, having a basketball in [my] hands. It's just a good feeling.”

“People see [basketball] as just a game, but it can be so much more than that. It brings people together, it is its own community,” LaFortune said.”I feel that the people who are working in it are just all great people, and you could learn a lot from them. Other than that, I just love playing it and I love watching it. I love everything about it. I love teaching it more than anything else, [and] I don't think I could see myself doing anything else.”

“[I] think it [is] a very exciting opportunity to learn from Packie, DyShawn and all the other great coaches that [UPB] has there. The variety of ages and skills is really cool, [for example,] working with kindergarteners all the way up to the highest level, [it is] definitely enhancing my perspective on the sport [which is] really what I'm just trying to do,” Hopkins said.

Franco believes mental training is important because it is a skill set that an athlete can add to their game that will only make them better. When an athlete mentally trains, it helps them trust and feel confident in their basketball skills, such as ball handling or shooting, when they are in competition or a game. Mental training can help with the pressure on an athlete as well as all the distractions that may come their way.

“[I have enjoyed seeing the athlete’s progress] unfold right in front of me. It was just refreshing because I feel like the level of basketball I’m at now, everyone kind of can shoot [and] everyone can dribble. You don't get to appreciate [and see someone] going from not being able to do something to actually doing it,” McNeil said.

“Training with Packie and with the other trainers has been a really good experience just learning new things from them… Especially training with Packie has taught me a lot in terms of just how he goes about training his pros all the way down to the younger kids and breaking stuff down to the very basics," Lum said.

“It was heartwarming to feel the success that from all the years of I feel like energy and effort that [I] put in leading up to that point. It just just showed that hard work pays off. It gave me a better mentality heading on throughout the rest of my career and honestly through the finals of just being confident,” Williams said.

Jabari Walker and six other talented rookies that participated in the Summer League worked with Unlimited Potential Basketball’s Coach Packie Turner in Santa Barbara over the summer. Here are how those guys performed in Vegas:

This past weekend, New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu started in her first All-Star Game at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois. After missing nearly her entire rookie season and leading her team to the WNBA Playoffs in her second season, Ionescu has continued to put in countless hours of work to continue to excel in her basketball career and receive her first All-Star selection.

All of these athletes dedicated a tremendous amount of time and dedication to get to where they are today. In their last two and a half months before the final countdown to the Draft, they spent their time with Coach Packie working on what they could improve in their game and what can make them successful at the next level.

“It was pretty special to get extended an invite by Jalen Williams. He said he just felt that I helped him a lot on this journey, and we're going to continue to build a strong working relationship together and he wanted me to be there to be a part of it,” Coach Packie said.