A common tactic for a basketball skills trainer is to create stakes and induce stress. Otherwise, working on footwork or absorbing simulated contact on the way to the rim just becomes bland mimicry. As a practical matter, the environment tends to be dull: a quiet high school gym.
Chris Conrad, though, has a setting that oozes authenticity. Players meeting him for a session might cock their head when they pull up to the a farm in St. Charles, Ill., which sits on the western edge of Chicagoland. Before them stands an ancient barn. In their head, a host of questions crop up.