During winter in Anchorage, Alaska, the sun can set by 3:45 p.m. In high school, Trajan Langdon would go outside three hours before a 7 p.m. tipoff. In the dark, he thought about that night’s game. Who he was playing. How they would guard him. He tried to visualize how it would unfold, a tactic his father taught him.
"Once you get in the game and it’s happening, it will feel like you’ve already played before and you won’t be as stressed, and you will react a lot quicker,” Langdon said. "That’s what shooting is, or whatever craft you do. You do it over and over and over. So when you do it when you perform, it’s muscle memory. So why wouldn’t you do that to the mind as well?”
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Langdon’s preparation is part of what has allowed him to go from prep standout in a faraway place to Duke star; to become the first Alaskan to make the NBA and then enjoy a successful pro career in Europe; and in the span of eight years, to work his way up front offices to the post he occupies now: general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans.
Langdon is the No. 2 person in the Pelicans’ front office under executive vice president David Griffin. The two took very different paths to New Orleans. Griffin got his start as an intern in the Phoenix Suns’ communications department in the early '90s. One of the things that unites them are neuroses about bracing for the unexpected.
“Unfortunately for us, I’m totally neurotic, so our staff has been modeling those things for quite a while,” Griffin said last week, when asked about a potential drop in the NBA's salary cap. “Trajan is similar to me in the fact that we want to control every variable that we possibly can, so I think from that standpoint we’ve been doing an awful lot of work.”
At Duke, Langdon’s teammates were shocked that a college student cared so much about diet and sleep. This was the ’90s, when student-athletes were subsisting on fast food and five hours. Going into Elton Brand’s sophomore year, coach Mike Krzyzewski forced the soon-to-be No. 1 overall pick to room with Langdon.
"It wasn’t just about eight hours," Brand said. "It was just about knowing when you go in different time zones, how your sleep patterns change from this time to this time. Trajan in the late ’90s was putting on an eye mask because he was going across the country, needing to get the proper sleep."
Langdon doesn’t remember the eye mask. If he did own one, it was not a regular part of his routine.
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Langdon’s holistic approach started at home. His father, Steve, who taught anthropology at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, prepared pregame meals that were high in carbs and low in fat: grilled chicken breast, macaroni and cheese and peas, broccoli or asparagus.
"He had done his research of, eat four hours before games," Langdon said. "If my game was at 7, he was doing something at 3, 4 o'clock."
Steve was an academic, but he encouraged his son to play sports. He believed they forced people to push their limits, physical and mental. He entered his son into track and field events and free-throw shooting competitions. Langdon ran cross country and played soccer. His primary sports were baseball and basketball.
A few months after Langdon graduated from high school, the Padres drafted him in the sixth round. Langdon spent three summers in the Padres’ minor league system. As part of their arrangement, the Padres paid for his school. They mailed him a tuition check at the start of every semester.
Langdon was a math major at Duke. By his junior year, arithmetic ceased and he started proving theories. One homework question could take an hour and a half. Langdon was an avid sports card collector as a kid, which is when he first noticed he liked working with numbers.
“Understanding what .333 was. What .167 was. What .224 was,” Langdon said. “All those things I kind of enjoyed growing up. That kind of logical thinking and problem-solving was interesting to me growing up.”
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Duke had one of its worst seasons of the Krzyzewski era during Langdon’s freshman year. They won 13 games while Krzyzewski took a leave of absence to undergo back surgery. By Langdon’s junior year, the Blue Devils were a powerhouse once again.
Shane Battier was a freshman on the 1997-98 team, which went 32-4 and lost to Kentucky in the Elite Eight. Battier watched how Langdon stuck around after practice to do individual shooting. Battier thought he worked hard. He was blown away by the time Langdon put in.
“Meeting Trajan for the first time, you want to stand up straighter,” Battier said.
“It wasn’t like he was shaming me into working out. Without really speaking, he had a way of saying, ‘Hey, if you’re serious about your craft and want to be the best, you’ve got to put the time in.’ ”
Langdon hit 112 3-pointers as a senior, the most in the nation. The Blue Devils were loaded with five future lottery picks on their roster. They were 37-1 going into the ’99 national championship against Connecticut. They trailed by one point in the closing seconds. Langdon attacked the basket and was called for traveling, a questionable whistle. Duke lost by three.
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"I think we would’ve went down as one of the best teams in the history of the game,” Langdon said. “Because you don’t win that final game, you’re not forgotten about, but you’re not talked about. It still stings to this day, for sure. It’s a game we should have won.”
Langdon departed as Duke’s all-time leader in 3-pointers made, a record that stood until JJ Redick eclipsed it. As the 11th overall pick, Langdon joined a Cavaliers team whose best player was an overweight Shawn Kemp. Langdon played three seasons in Cleveland. In 2002, he had a training camp invite from the Miami Heat but decided to sign with Benneton Treviso in Italy instead.
Benneton Treviso won the Italian Cup and reached the EuroLeague championship game in Langdon’s first season there. They played uptempo basketball, and players were encouraged to launch 3s. Langdon loved it; even though he later played on more successful teams, it was the most fun he had as a pro.
"I never doubted it," Langdon said. "I’ve always been the guy when I make a decision, I look forward. I don’t look back. I’ll look ahead. I said, 'I’ll come over here and I want to kill in Europe and have a chance to make it back to the NBA.' But wherever I was, I was present. I was never someone else."
The language barrier was a gift and a curse. After a close loss to Barcelona, Benneton Treviso coach Ettore Messina berated Langdon in the locker room. Langdon had no idea. A teammate approached him on the walk to the bus and asked if he was doing all right.
"I look at him and go, 'Yeah, I’m fine. I’m upset we lost,’ ” Langdon said. "He goes, 'Good, because Ettore was killing you in there.'"
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Langdon played nine seasons in Italy, Turkey and Russia. He won two EuroLeague championships and was named to the EuroLeague ’00-10 All-Decade Team. The crowds there were more hostile than in the United States. In Belgrade, Serbia, Langdon got hit in the head with a battery. He also once got plunked by a euro.
Langdon learned to speak Russian and met his wife, Tatiana, while he was with CSKA Moscow. In 2011, he retired and moved back to the United States. A year later, he started scouting for the San Antonio Spurs. Langdon was part of the organization when it lost the 2013 Finals to the Heat in heartbreaking fashion, then bounced back to drill them in five games the following year.
“The way they played basketball — selfless, competitive, tough — was the style of basketball I liked to play, I enjoyed watching,” Langdon said. "A lot of people thought it was boring. I saw it as winning basketball that was fun to watch."
By then, the game was starting to become more perimeter-oriented. Position-less basketball was about to become en vogue. All of a sudden, the ability to knock down outside shots became the league's most important skill.
"I think he (Langdon) would’ve been much more valuable in the modern NBA game where the 3-point shot is much more valued than it was in the early 2000s,” said Battier, who played for the Heat from 2011-14 and now works in their front office. “He was a victim of just the era of NBA basketball. And I would say the same thing about myself. I was 10 years too early. I would be making $20 million a year as a 3-and-D guy now. But back then, I couldn’t run pick and roll.”
In 2015, Langdon accepted a job with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He did some scouting and served as the liaison between the players and the front office, which was headed by Griffin. Langdon was weary of coming off as inauthentic. He joined the team in September but didn’t have an in-depth conversation with LeBron James for two months.
"I didn’t want him to think I was trying to buddy up to him," Langdon said. "I wanted him to know I was there for the organization and whatever Griff needs me to do."
Brand, who is now the general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, was finishing up his playing career around that time. In 2012-13, Brand spent one season with the Dallas Mavericks. Langdon kept peppering him with questions about what it was like to play with Dirk Nowitzki.
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"I was like, 'Why are you asking me about Dirk Nowitzki? There’s no chance you’re getting Dirk Nowitzki’ ” Brand said. "(Langdon) just wanted to see how a Hall of Famer ticked, pretty much. What were his habits? What was he like to be around?"
Brand realized his former roommate wasn't gathering intel. He was searching for insight.
"His mindset," Brand said, "was always trying to find an edge."
