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The story is much more technical and complicated, and the prologue was written during the months after the Clippers lost to the Thunder in six games in the Western Conference Semifinals last spring. It was a mixture of hours spent reinventing his shooting stroke with Clippers shooting coach Bob Thate ... grueling conditioning workouts that pushed the envelope of science and technology ... and a series of heart-to-hearts with the Spurs' Tim Duncan about how to be a better leader and winner.

"He really respects Tim," said Griffin's Atlanta-based business manager, Lorne Clark. "His thing was, "How do I become more of a leader and how do I help this team win? What do I have to do?"

Produce, Duncan told him. Lead by example. Make people respect your actions. Have personal relationships with each of your teammates so you can have one-on-one conversations with them when they need you.

Griffin listened, and took notes. Then, during the idyllic summer months in LA, it was time to execute the plan.

Ken Berger, CBS Sports

All professional athletes push their limits, but Griffin wanted to know exactly where those limits were -- and how to specifically train to expand them and manipulate his performance.

After the loss to the Thunder, Griffin reported for duty at Davis' Gameshape Inc. training facility -- 17 miles from Staples Center, deep inside an angular, two-tone concrete warehouse surrounded by a mix of commercial and residential buildings. Griffin put on a breathing mask, strapped a heart-rate monitor around his chest and went to work.

"Basically what that data told me -- and if you watched the games, it made sense -- was that he was very good at really quick, explosive movements," Davis said. "Those things were very easy for him. So he was able to push his heart rate really high, really quickly and be very comfortable doing it.

"One of his weaknesses was how quickly he could recover from that," he said. "He could go really hard and be really comfortable doing it, but it would take him a little longer to catch his breath and recover."

When Griffin resumed training, it took 2 1/2 to 3 minutes for his heartbeat to return to its resting rate after maxing out at 180 beats per minute. After two weeks of training, Griffin's recovery time was down to 45-50 seconds.

"In a perfect world," Davis said, "we want him to get down to 30 seconds."

To achieve this, Davis ran Griffin through simulated games during which he was performing the same movements -- at the same intensities and time intervals -- he would experience in a real game. They started with a 12-minute quarter, with regulation timeouts, and quickly progressed to two-, three- and four-quarter simulations with halftime breaks.