The grind of 82 NBA games takes a toll on even the strongest bodies. As the playoffs roll around, we often hear the old adage: “nobody is healthy this time of year.”

For Cleveland Cavaliers forward Larry Nance Jr., that grind comes with an additional challenge. As a high schooler, Nance was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the digestive tract and can cause life-threatening complications.

“It had done everything from stunting my growth, to I wasn’t gaining weight, I had no energy to play sports, and I was about ready to quit basketball,” Nance said in an exclusive interview on The BIG Factor via the BIGPLAY Sports Network. “It had just really depleted me.”

While Nance knew achieving his athletic dreams would be difficult with IBD, he immediately went to work.

“When I got diagnosed, I went and Googled if there were any athletes that have this,” Nance said. “This is what I want to do, is it still possible with this disease? David Garrard (2000s Jaguars QB) came up and from that point on, he became my north star. That dude motivated me more than he’ll ever know.”

After realizing his dreams in spite of Crohn’s disease, Nance wanted to return the favor to other athletes battling IBD and took matters into his own hands.

“I had always said to myself, ‘Look, if I ever get the chance to play professionally or be an athlete, I’d like to be that for the next kid or, you know, whoever is looking for somebody to lean on.’”

Nance met Noah Weber, a high schooler with Crohn’s disease, through social media in the early days of his NBA career, and the two formed Larry’s foundation, Athletes vs. Crohn’s and Colitis (AVC).

“We started AVC trying to make some of the changes we wanted to see in our community,” Nance said. “It’s led to over seven figures raised, just about 40 scholarships given out to kids in Cleveland and New York, all that suffer with Crohn’s and IBD.”

In addition to the scholarship fund, Nance holds meetings, socials, pickleball tournaments and regularly hosts youth at home games.

While Nance’s strong philanthropy efforts keep him occupied away from basketball, the forward is excited to return home to Cleveland this season to show off an improved shooting stroke.

“Shooting has been something that I’ve really been working on over the past few years,” Nance said of how his game has changed since his last tour with the Cavs. “The percentages look great so I’m going to keep letting that fly. I know Kenny and his staff are excited about exploring having a big that can take some of the spacing issues away from Darius (Garland) and Donovan (Mitchell).”

Nance will be a critical piece of the Cavs rotation this season, Crohn’s disease and all.