— Gotta have your serious face on and stuff.
— His work ethic is unbelievable.
Something that I haven't even seen before
in my time in the NBA.
To see a guy that comes in every day
with this desire to get better,
is something that's remarkable.
— I might not have the most talent.
I might be a freak, my body, but
I might not be the best shooter,
the best ball handler,
the best passer, but by working hard, you can achieve those things.
The most important thing is the heart, what you feel inside.
It's the flame inside your heart.
How many people they're 6'6" like Jordan?
The same body type, everything.
Can they play like Jordan?
Why?
He had that flame inside his heart, he was a killer.
I'm definitely a killer.
You know, it's interesting, the work ethic is
kind of something that you hear, like, about legendary players.
You hear about Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan,
and all this stuff, and, you know, being on a different team,
you start hearing about the work ethic of Giannis.
You hear about it from other coaches and
other players and whispers and ...
and you're like, "Is it true? Is it not true? I'm not sure."
And then you get here and you're like,
"Oh my god, this guy works so hard" —
it's just, it's incredible.
Like, very rarely does the hype, like, live up to it,
but Giannis lives up to the hype.
— When I came over here, I used to ...
like I was 6'9" at the time, when I was 18.
And then I grew,
but I used to play like I was a guard.
Almost I was trying to avoid the contact.
Once I realized, you know, my length and how big I was
compared to everybody else and I got stronger.
That's when I realized
I can power through the contact.
— Number one seed in the East is Toronto.
He jumped with him and Giannis
finishes ferociously!
— My very first workout when I went to Greece,
I had this whole workout structure set up.
And I thought I had some nice dribble moves,
and some tough finishes around the basket.
It was gonna be some slide-all finishes
some floaters, and the very first time
I said, "Giannis, we're gonna do an in-and-out crossover.
I want you to slide off with the left hand and finish."
He does it.
I say, "Giannis, same exact move. Let's get another rep."
This time, he proceeds to do a slide-off
with the left hand, bring it back to the right hand,
and just dunk it and crush it.
And I'm sitting there, mouth open,
and I'm like, "O.K., that was kind of flukey."
Next exercise comes, "Hey Giannis, we're gonna do
a crossover between the legs, behind the back,
and I want you to come through the middle of the paint.
Little floater."
He comes down the paint does like a windmill dunk
right over the front of the rim.
I say, "Giannis, little floater."
"Coach, I don't shoot that many floaters.
I'm attacking the rim to dunk on people."
— He's leading by example.
His voice is getting more and more prevalent,
more and more comfortable with it.
Talking to guys in timeouts and
practice and film sessions.
He's just growing as a leader,
just like his game is growing.
— I think Giannis wants to be
the best player in the world.
And he knows the only way to do that is to have
extreme work ethic, an extreme amount of patience,
and I think determination at the same time.
Because it's not gonna happen overnight.
This is a process.
And he's definitely 100% bought in.
— You know, it's always about, hard work is always about progress,
you know, and we, we don't settle for nothing,
you know, we don't settle for, like, anything.
We want to be the best.
— You know, I always look back and I say to myself,
"It's gonna get easier."
And as I get older, it never get easier.
It gets harder and harder and harder.
But at the end of the day, you wanna win a championship, and
you wanna be great in this league,
you just gotta go through, you know, those steps.
That's why I'm here right now.
Hey, thank you guys for supporting.
Hey, thank you guys for supporting, man.
— We love you, Giannis.
Giannis, we love you.
We love you, Giannis.