When Paityn got sick, Strus’ foundation had already decided it would introduce a new annual honor at camp — the Gary Strong Award, named for Wimmer’s late father. It would go to a young person who had shown unusual resilience in the face of illness.
Around that time, Paityn’s story appeared on the local news. Members of the foundation’s board saw it. Strus said it was likely his parents who first brought her name up. Maggie contacted Reggie via social media.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” she asked him.
That summer, at Strus’ basketball camp in the Chicago suburbs — attended by Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson, Caleb Martin, Strus’ former teammate on the Heat, New Orleans Pelicans forward Herb Jones and Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray — Paityn and her parents stood near the front of the gym as campers gathered cross-legged on the hardwood after the final session.
“Max walks up… he dabs them up… ‘Maximus!’” Sandy Castillo said later, still smiling at the memory. “And I was like, wait — he really knows you?”
Strus called Paityn forward and introduced her as the inaugural recipient of the Gary Strong Award. She received a $10,000 check to help with medical expenses from six weeks in intensive care and months of rehabilitation.
“The bills are going to keep coming,” Sandy said. “It’s strictly set aside for medical.”
The relationship between Strus and the Castillos didn’t end there.
When Paityn returned to volleyball — something doctors once weren’t sure she would do again — Strus went to a game. Oak Forest against Stagg, Strus’ alma mater. Strus had just suffered the injury that has kept him out this season, and was home beginning his rehab. Strus walked in quietly and took a seat midway up the bleachers with Wimmer and his mother, and Strus’s mom and sister. Reggie saw Strus first.
“I thought, ‘There’s no way,’” Reggie said.
Paityn spotted him during warmups. A double take. A grin she tried to suppress. Then back to the line drill. Strus stayed for the match. He cheered, clapped, and talked with the Castillos afterward about school and how her legs felt now compared to when she first started to walk again.
No cameras. No foundation signage. Just an NBA player in a high school gym watching a 14-year-old who had once been told recovery could take years.
“He’s still just Max from Hickory Hills,” Reggie said. “We know he has a sandwich named after him at a couple of the local sub joints around here. And he’s a Miller beer sponsor. But he’s still just Max.”
Two days before Christmas in 2024, Dylan Long went in for a sports physical.
He was 15, a right-handed pitcher and third baseman from the south suburbs. Routine bloodwork showed an abnormally high white blood cell count. More tests followed. On Dec. 23, doctors told him he had Stage 2A Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Four masses in his chest.
Chemo began Jan. 6, 2025. Dylan tried to hold his routine together. Treatment on Mondays. School on Thursdays and Fridays when he could manage it.
Then came proton radiation because the largest mass sat too close to his heart. For 22 consecutive mornings, he arrived at 6:30. He was strapped down so he wouldn’t move. A molded mask secured over his face. Fifteen minutes. Then school.
One afternoon that spring, after chemo, he took the mound.
“I couldn’t imagine doing that if someone had told me I would,” Dylan said.
Last summer, on the morning of the same day Paityn received her check from the Strus foundation, Dylan Long also stood at center court at Strus’ camp and accepted a $10,000 check as a beneficiary.
The money helped with medical expenses — proton radiation is expensive even with insurance — but his mother, Gina, still circles back to something else.
“It’s not even the money,” she said. “It’s knowing that they cared.”
Strus’ sister Maggie texted on radiation days. Before a PET scan, Dylan received a video message from Boston Red Sox pitcher Liam Hendriks, himself a Hodgkin survivor, wishing him luck. The video was arranged by Strus.
“It just shows they care,” Dylan said. “It was humbling.”
Long was declared in remission in November, 18 days before his 16th birthday.
On a cold night in Chicago earlier this season, Strus, Maggie and Wimmer walked into a flat on Chicago’s west side. It had exposed ceilings and hardwood floors and pillars holding up beams around the space, and they were escorted into a small boardroom to hang out with a grant recipient and some teenage students.
The Cavs were playing the next night against the Bulls, and Strus joined them on the trip, even though he wouldn’t be able to play.
No Shame On U is a Chicago-based mental health nonprofit that operates inside public schools, running workshops for middle and high school students on anxiety, depression and how to respond when a classmate says something serious.
The Strus foundation awarded No Shame on You a grant in late 2025 after reviewing applications from Chicago-area nonprofits. The funding allowed No Shame to expand its school-based programming after receiving more than 150 workshop requests from more than 25 schools in just three months.
In 2025, the group delivered 29 workshops reaching 871 students. With the foundation’s support, it expects to reach roughly 1,700 students in the coming year and complete a Teen Mental Health Guide designed to help students and families navigate moments of crisis.
When the Cavaliers were in Chicago, Strus, his sister Maggie and Wimmer visited the organization’s flat to sit in on a youth leadership session. They sat at a roundtable with about a dozen students who help lead peer mental health efforts in their schools.
Strus asked how many students they reached. What happens when someone says they’re in crisis? How do you respond when a classmate confides something heavy?
He talked about pressure — about how being a public figure doesn’t eliminate anxiety. That playing in the NBA doesn’t erase bad days.
“They don’t just want their name on something,” executive director Wendy Singer said. “They want to understand the impact.”
Singer said the funding from Strus’ foundation would allow her to double the number of in-school workshops she holds.
After one middle-school workshop, she said, a boy waited until the room cleared and asked for an extra bracelet. His sister was struggling. He wanted to give her something.
“The goal is just to create a community for all,” Strus said.
Joe Vardon is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic, based in Cleveland. Follow Joe on Twitter @joevardon