Kevin Love Is Taking Care of Himself During the Longest Offseason He's Ever Had

Basketball star Kevin Love says some of the best health advice he’s ever heard came from a legendary baseball player.

“I learned from Derek Jeter—thankfully, early on in my career—that it’s a lot easier to stay in shape than [it is] to get back in shape,” the Cleveland Cavalier recently told GQ on Instagram Live. “I was a fat boy early on so I had to learn that the hard way.”

For Love, health and wellness isn’t something he does on the side. As he puts it, “my business is my body.” Which is why we asked the five-time NBA All-Star to help us curate our 2020 GQ Best Stuff Winter Box, with an eye towards the things that would keep you well through the colder months. (GQ, in turn, made a $100,000 donation to the Kevin Love Fund, which Love, a proud, vocal advocate of mental health, created to help give people tools to achieve physical and emotional well-being.)

As part of the conversation, Love shared that, due to a pandemic-shortened season (his Cavaliers were not invited to the NBA bubble), he’s currently navigating the longest offseason of his life. Preparing for his 13th year in the NBA, he keeps his body right by finding the proper balance of performance and recovery—and by doing the small things. Highlighting two of the items in the box, Love admits that he flosses at least twice a day and, thanks to girlfriend Kate Bock, has gotten into the habit of using sheet masks for his face. “There’s nothing wrong with a man taking care of himself,” he says. (We agree.)

Of course, Love’s wellness goes beyond basketball (and grooming). Two and a half years after writing an essay for The Players’ Tribune about an in-game panic attack, Love continues to navigate his journey with anxiety, and, in so doing, normalize the conversation around mental health. He’s making his impact felt in a year when—through a pandemic, renewed conversations about social justice, and an election—we’ve all learned just how powerfully our behavior affects the people and communities around us. Which is why we should all take care of ourselves so that we can take care of each other.

“We can be better as a whole,” Love said. “We can be better as a collective. It’s not me, me, me. It’s we. That’s what I’ve learned more than anything throughout this entire period. It’s just so much bigger than me. This is about all of us.”

You can watch the full episode below.

Originally Appeared on GQ