UCSB's Joe Pasternack on two players who will play important roles in the NBA Finals

May 30—Joe Pasternack still remembers the time he had to sit Aaron Gordon down and tell him to stop practicing so much.

It was only two games into Gordon's lone season at Arizona and Pasternack, now the coach at UC Santa Barbara but then an assistant coach with the Wildcats, remembers then-head coach Sean Miller telling him that something seemed off with Gordon.

So, Pasternack brought Gordon into his office and quickly found out why Gordon wasn't himself.

"We would have practice from say 2:30-5 every day and he'd go back at night with a manager and a manager would put a parachute on his back and Aaron would run and drag him to increase his leg strength and power," Pasternack told The Denver Gazette. "He was worn out. He was doing double days at night time, not just coming in and shooting, which he was obsessed with getting better (at), but he was so driven — the most driven athlete I've ever coached — (that) I had to say, 'Aaron, you cannot do this. You're going to hurt yourself and overwork yourself, which you won't be ready for our games.'"

Pasternack was on the staff at Cal when he originally recruited Aaron's older brother, Drew, who ultimately wound up choosing UCLA. But Pasternack spent four years trying to get Aaron to Tucson and it paid off.

"It was a huge, huge get for us," Pasternack said. "He was a top two player in the country. He was an unbelievable talent."

But even as Gordon went on to earn first-team All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 Freshman of the Year honors and helped Arizona win 33 games and reach the Elite Eight, it was never Gordon's talent that stuck out to Pasternack.

"If I had to use one word — motor. That separated Aaron from everybody else," Pasternack said. "He was the backbone of our team as a freshman, which is really hard to do. He loved the game more than anyone I'd ever seen."

That passion for the game is still evident in Gordon's game now nearly a decade into his NBA career. Just like he did at Arizona, Gordon is thriving in Denver in a situation that perfectly suits him and he's once again in the spotlight as a major piece on a team that is four wins away from an NBA title.

"It's awesome to see him not only have an incredible role, but Aaron's a winner," Pasternack said. "Everywhere he's ever been, whether it was high school at (Archbishop) Mitty (in San Jose) or Arizona, he's won championships. Every team needs someone that is so driven and determined, like Aaron, and now he does have that role that he deserves to have (and) that he's worked so hard to have."

But Gordon isn't the only player in these NBA Finals that Pasternack will be rooting for.

On the other side is Heat point guard Gabe Vincent, whose final year at UC Santa Barbara was Pasternack's first.

Despite tearing his ACL late in his junior season and undergoing a coaching change a short time later, Vincent stuck it out at UCSB and rehabbed as hard as possible, making his way onto the court the following season and it's something Pasternack will never forget.

"It's an incredible story," Pasternack said. "Gabe and (with) the culture of college basketball, could've said, 'You know what, I'm going to redshirt next year and I'm going to transfer.' To really show you who Gabe is, his character, his loyalty not to me but to the university, he stuck with it. He was part of a team that was tied for the most games (won) in the history of the school and also was part of a team that tied the biggest turnaround in NCAA history his senior year — a team that went from six wins to 23 wins. He was the leader of that team. He was the glue who held that team together."

Pasternack has now won at least 21 games in five of his six seasons at UCSB, including a pair of trips to the NCAA Tournament, and all of that success stems back to Vincent putting his full support behind Pasternack when he took over.

"It was amazing," Pasternack said. "When I first got the job, the day I was announced as the head coach on Twitter, Gabe called me and asked me, 'Can I set up a team meeting? What do you need from me, coach?' He had just had an ACL injury and that's just the kind of leader he was. He comes from two amazing parents that have really raised him the right way. That attributes to who he is as a person."

Vincent went undrafted after his UCSB career ended, but Pasternack fully believes he would've been drafted if not for the injury a year earlier.

With the way Vincent has played in these playoffs, most recently averaging nearly 16 points per game in the conference finals, it's hard to say Pasternack is wrong. In just a few short years, Vincent has gone from the G League to starting in the Finals and it's no surprise to Pasternack, who's now got two reasons to be proud while watching Vincent's Heat battle Gordon's Nuggets for an NBA title.

"Aaron and Gabe (are) very, very similar," Pasternack said. "Both from the Bay Area, both incredibly driven young men (with) the highest character coming from incredible parents and it's not an accident that they both are competing in the NBA Finals and have had the careers that they've had."