Improvement by leaps, bounds
Capela, Gobert rise together in pursuit of American dream
Clint Capela felt uncomfortable getting naked in front of the stranger. At 19, recently thrust into the life of a professional athlete and a year away from testing his mettle in the NBA, he undressed nervously for his first massage.
He was the youngest among a drove of European and African prospects who spent the summer of 2013 training in Dallas for a shot at the NBA draft.
A day started with hearty nutrition, plyometric training, swimming, weightlifting and more at the Jewish Community Center. It continued with position drills and pickup games at the Mark Cuban Heroes Basketball Center and ended at The Southside, a studio apartment complex with special beds long enough for 7-footers.
Agent Bouna Ndiaye, who represented Capela, arranged the setup to increase the value of his clients. Capela prepared for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to call his name the following year, while others crammed for less than two months to improve their chances.
Size and natural athleticism let them rise abroad, but training in Texas exposed them to the environment of an NBA player.
“It actually helped me a lot physically,” said Capela, now the Rockets’ starting center. “The routine, working out every day, the weight room, yoga and on the court — it was so hard.”
The physical toll sometimes necessitated massages. It also invited embarrassment and ribbing that toughened his skin.
“His first massage, he was terrified,” Terrelle Woody said. “It was a girl massaging him.”
Woody coached the group, but, at times, viewed himself like a big brother. He shouted, “Take it off!” while checking on the sheepish teenager.
“He kept his boxers on,” Woody said.
Expanding their horizons
It would be one of many new experiences for Capela, a 6-10 center from Switzerland, during his first months-long stay in America, which he credits as a significant growth period. He was shier, scrawnier and unfamiliar with a setting that five years later has him looking like the perfect fit in Houston.
“He got more comfortable in his massages and everything,” Woody said.
In the Western Conference semifinals between the Rockets and Utah Jazz, Capela is outplaying an opposing center he knows well. Not only did Rudy Gobert, who sports a wingspan of 7 feet, 8½ inches, grow up in France, but he embraced a role as Capela’s mentor that comingof-age summer in Dallas.
“He was important for my growth,” Capela said.
He has blossomed since they first bonded. Capela is the most outwardly comedic player on a team of no-nonsense veterans. Fans see him dancing, singing karaoke and acting in sketches on the home scoreboard.
He’s averaging 16.6 points, 13.4 rebounds and shooting 65 percent in the playoffs.
“He was different,” Gobert said. “You can see that he is way more confident now.”
Woody worked players hard and loosened them up. He considered it his responsibility to introduce them to American traditions. The young Frenchmen forgot about haricots verts and pomme frites once they discovered the green beans and mashed sweet potatoes at Cowboy Chicken. Woody encouraged them to eat the rotisserie bird with their hands.
“I see these guys eat it with a knife and a fork,” he said. “Where they come from, the portions are so much smaller. We have larger portions over here. They loved it. They just gorged out on it.”
Woody cackles when he retells the story of Capela’s massage. He got a kick out of witnessing the young men experience a culture shock. He often brought them to chain restaurants known for waitresses dressed in flattering outfits.
“Hooters once,” Gobert said with a smile drooping into a nervous grin. “I was kind of, uh … I liked it.”
Noted Woody: “These guys would lose their minds. They’d never seen anything like that. Rudy would be taking pictures with girls.”
The innocence of the foreign players likely derived less from their boyish sensibilities than their inexperience with amenities. Some came from Senegal and Mali. Capela had grown up in an orphanage and group homes in Switzerland, where his mother had emigrated from the Congo, before leaping into France’s pro circuit at 15.
Woody called up Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki for a pair of size 16s to give to Capela.
“They don’t have the best shoes when they come over here,” Woody said.
“For a basketball player,” Gobert said, “it’s the American dream.”
Gobert, who is two years older than Capela and had starred in France, trained for a final surge before the Jazz acquired him on draft night that June.
“Clint was in a gray area because he didn’t know he was going to be a draft pick,” Woody said.
Thanks to his background as a fútbol striker, Capela shuffled fast, spun tightly, glided baseline-to-baseline and dunked effortlessly. But he could turn sideways behind a telephone pole and disappear. He could not lift 25-pound dumbbells.
He raised twice that weight by August. He sharpened his short-range drives to both sides, expanded his midrange game, added a swim move and increased his vertical.
“He could jump and dunk and stuff like that, but his skill had gotten so much better,” Woody said. “He may have put on 15 pounds of muscle. By the end of the summer, I was talking to him about what I thought he could get drafted that year.”
Two peas in a pod
The Rockets took Capela with the 24th pick in 2014.
Woody also emphasized a mindset that Capela, 23, still uses: “Don’t go outside of the box and try to be somebody else.”
Capela’s rebounding, running to the rim and hovering near the basket complemented playmaking guards James Harden and Chris Paul superbly enough for the Rockets to win a franchise-record 65 games this season.
“He’s still in his box,” said Woody, who wonders if Capela could reach a higher level were he freed up to create his own shot. “That’s going to be the next phase of his game.”
He needed to do more boxing out, rotating and rim protecting in Wednesday’s 116-108 loss to the Jazz, which Woody watched from within Toyota Center.
“What Rudy did for Clint was he taught him how to be a professional early on,” Woody said. “Rudy, you see him and he’s smiling, he’s goofy, but when he’s on the court, he’s got a lot of toughness with him. And Clint has the same thing.
“Those guys are mild-mannered and stuff, but if you want to get into a dogfight, you want to take them with you.”
They are competitors in an even series that picks up in Utah on Friday. Capela cut short a conversation about Gobert. And Gobert did the same.
“I’ve talked enough about Clint,” Gobert said. “It’s playoff time, you know?”