Gallinari underwent successful back surgery on April 7. NBAE/Getty Images

Las Vegas, NV – The tableau played out this morning, more than two hours before today’s Summer League game at Cox Pavilion, in a near-empty gym before an audience of maybe a dozen coffee-toting arena workers.

Danilo Gallinari, just three months removed from back surgery, was trotting, then running, then high-stepping, full court from baseline to baseline, alongside Greg Brittenham, the Knicks’ longtime assistant coach for player development.

Back and forth they went, Greg prodding and encouraging and Danilo following. It’s the kind of off-season work no one notices, the kind that will hopefully produce dividends for the Knicks several months down the road.

And it’s the kind of work that Greg Brittenham has done for the Knicks since Gallinari was three years old.

Having recently completed his 18th season with New York, Brittenham has become one of the game’s most respected strength and conditioning coaches, one who has been at the forefront of the ongoing evolution of athletic training.

And make no mistake; it’s a world in which the term “off-season” ceased to exist a long, long time ago. Gone forever are the days in which an NBA player would grow fat and happy over a long summer, then use a month’s worth of training camp to try to work off the excess pounds. Now, training is a 52-week, 12-month a year business.

“Players are looking for every advantage they can gain over an opponent,” says Brittenham. “I think it was Larry Bird who had a quote of, every time he left the court, he wondered ‘if there’s someone doing more than I’m doing’. So it’s true that a lot of players want to have an impact in this league and they’re doing a lot of work in the off-season to gain an advantage over an opponent, and I’m just here to help facilitate that advantage.”

To that end, the groundwork for a player to survive the grind of an 82-game regular season and then perhaps as many as two dozen Playoff games is laid in the summer months.

“Really beginning directly after the season ends, we have an off-season plan in place for the players,” says Brittenham, a member of the Knicks’ staff for both of their Eastern Conference Championship teams of the 1990s. “That doesn’t mean they come right in and they start running hills and lifting weights and all that. There is a period of recovery from the season, and depending on the player and how much time and how many minutes they play during the season, really kind of determines how long the length of that recovery period is. Basically, early in the off-season you begin with a recovery period.

“Then about the first part of June you start with what’s called foundational training, which is working the foundation of the energy system, movement patterns and strength required to play basketball. And then as the summer progresses there are what we call shifts and phases from more broad and foundational training to very specific energy systems, strength requirements, power development, speed development and so forth. So when they enter training camp (in October), we hope they’re at their strongest and best condition at that point.”

Two of Brittenham’s most important off-season projects are Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, both of whom are coming off surgery this spring. Gallinari, who was limited to just 28 games as a rookie, underwent back surgery on April 7. Not yet cleared for full contact drills, he has nonetheless been a major presence throughout the Knicks’ stay in Las Vegas.

“I’m part of an entire group that’s working with Danilo’s rehabilitation and then post-rehabilitation and then actual training for athleticism,” says Greg. “So I’m one of five or six people involved in Danilo’s off-season program. That includes the entire medical staff, (head athletic trainer) Roger Hinds, (team physical therapist) Dave Hancock, (performance specialist) Anthony Goenaga, (director, player care) Dr. Lisa Callahan and then all the coaches are involved in the process. My involvement is just from the standpoint of trying to get him stronger and more durable, and then working on sprint mechanics and then certainly conditioning, agility, power, all of the athletic components.”

Brittenham’s summer training programs aren’t confined to New York or to Summer League. As the summer progresses, if the player can’t come to him, he’ll go to the player.

“It depends on who’s back home, meaning, which players are living in the (New York) area, the philosophy of the coach, in that whether they want me to leave the Training Center and go out and visit guys or if they kind of want to leave guys alone where hopefully they’re following a program,” says Greg, who joined the Knicks in 1991. “So from year-to-year, it really changes.

“My first five or six years, everybody lived in town so I didn’t have to go anywhere. Then it seemed like there was a three-or-four year period where I was on the road at least once every two weeks, I was gone for three or four days visiting players. Recently, we’ve had a lot of players back home again. So if there’s a player that has a special need or a particular interest of ours and we want to give him greater attention, and he’s not in New York, then I’ll be on the road quite a bit.”

One of Brittenham’s biggest challenges is gaining the confidence of players who meet him for the first time, or who have had other strength coaches in college or in the pros. This is particularly true during Summer League, with a roster filled with rookies and free agents and every player fighting for a job.

“The big thing is trust and you can just impress upon them that I’m only here to help them become a better athlete and a better basketball player,” says Brittenham. “Selfishly, that will help our team get better; and if our team gets better then I’ve got my job. So you have to gain the trust of the individual and once he knows that I only have his best interests at heart, and that I’m not trying to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself, not asking him to do anything I wouldn’t do myself, that makes it a lot easier.”

Off-season training has become a Knick staple ever since Brittenham joined the team. His favorite summertime pupils date back to the 1990s, but the current group is catching up.

“Just working with Patrick (Ewing) in the off-season, because he never stopped working,” says Greg. “Doc Rivers would do anything I asked him to do. If I told Doc we had a quarter-mile hill outside our practice facility, and said “Let’s go run that 15 times,’ he’d say “Let’s go do it.’ And he would never question it. Doug Christie was fantastic to work with in terms of doing anything I asked him to do. Derek Harper was outstanding, just one of the all-time best guys to train with in the off-season. In fact, Harper would over-train and so I would basically tell him, `You’re doing too much, you’ve got to take time off.’

“This year, Wilson Chandler’s been coming in on a regular basis. Chris Duhon has really embraced what we’re doing and comes in on a regular basis. David Lee is a hard worker in the off-season; we go on the track, we run hills, we run on the court. So I’ve got my share of hard workers right now.”

It will be hard work that no one sees. . .until perhaps this winter when it all pays off.

WEDNESDAY’S GAME: The Knicks fell to 0-2 at the 2009 NBA Summer League presented by EA Sports with a 96-73 loss to the Detroit Pistons on Wednesday (July 15) at Cox Pavilion. . .First-round draft pick Jordan Hill led the Knicks with 14 points, while Toney Douglas had 10 assists to give him 21 assists over the first two Summer League games. The Knicks shot just 33 percent from the field (25-76 FGA) and were outrebounded 51-32. First-round pick Austin Daye led the Pistons with 27 points. . .Following a day off on Thursday, the Knicks’ Summer League squad returns to action on Friday (July 17) against the Sacramento Kings at Cox Pavilion (6:00 p.m. New York time on MSG Network with Gus Johnson, Walt Frazier and Tina Cervasio). -- 30 --