{"id":75747,"date":"2025-06-04T07:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T07:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75747\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T07:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T07:27:13","slug":"ive-trained-shai-gilgeous-alexander-for-years-here-are-5-things-you-can-learn-from-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75747\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve trained Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for years. Here are 5 things you can learn from him"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic\u2019s desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dwayne Washington was a teacher at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, where Gilgeous-Alexander attended, and also his club basketball coach.<\/p>\n

I met Shai during his eighth-grade summer. He came to our gym for a tryout. His mother brought him.<\/p>\n

He was tiny back then. Probably the smallest guy in the whole gym.<\/p>\n

But from day one, he already had a routine. He was already working. Everyone else was trying to dunk or do crazy moves. He had a paper that he wrote drills on and over in the corner of the gym, just working on his routine.<\/p>\n

I thought: Man, he was raised right.<\/p>\n

Then practice started, and he looked you in the eye, locked in. It was quite impressive. Even still, I couldn\u2019t foresee anything like this: multi-time All Star, leading scorer in the NBA, MVP and the best player on a team in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n

So here are five lessons anyone can learn from SGA\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n

Create an alter ego<\/p>\n

When you get into sports, you may feel like you\u2019re inadequate based on the stages in your development. Maybe it\u2019s your physicality. Perhaps it\u2019s where you\u2019re from, your background.<\/p>\n

So you can create an alter ego to help you.<\/p>\n

I used to always say, \u201cWhen you watch Denzel Washington or Tom Cruise in movies, they are tough guys in the movies. But they are playing a role. So when you step on the court, that\u2019s like being in front of the camera. You\u2019re not yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Shai, that alter ego was Allen Iverson. That was his guy. Iverson was a real-life superhero because he was small, like Shai, but he was tough, confident, and played hard. He was everything that Shai aspired to be.<\/p>\n

When Shai was younger, he wasn\u2019t physically there. But I saw that he embodied that alter ego because he was still throwing his body around against big guys with the mindset of Iverson. It helped him.<\/p>\n

For some people, I suggest creating an alter ego, such as the Incredible Hulk or Batman. You can use them as examples to take your mind somewhere else, other than where you are at that moment. You can use them to eliminate the fear, uncertainty and doubt.<\/p>\n

Now, Shai is at a level where he is that guy, and people can use him as an alter ego.<\/p>\n

Keep finding motivation<\/p>\n

Initially, as a basketball player, you have the motivation of getting to the NBA or becoming a starter. Sometimes you have a motivation to buy your mother a house or to prove people wrong.<\/p>\n

However, your motivation will change as you become more successful. You always have to reset and find new motivations. If you\u2019re able to do that, you\u2019ll never be complacent. That\u2019s a critical mindset for longevity.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen Shai do that every game. He always finds motivation. Oh, we can\u2019t win in a small city and you think I\u2019m going to leave? No, I\u2019m going to win here. Oh, you think I\u2019m too small or think I can\u2019t shoot? I\u2019m going to come back and up my percentages.<\/p>\n

You can always find those little doubts that people have about you and use them to your advantage.<\/p>\n

That keeps you on top.<\/p>\n

Positive thinking<\/p>\n

This is critical.<\/p>\n

Positive thinking must occur every single day. You have to be ultra-optimistic because the world is grim. Your situation might be gloomy. But positive thinking is the No. 1 factor you must have, more than anything else here.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not thinking positively, then you can\u2019t even find motivation. You don\u2019t even see the purpose of an alter ego.<\/p>\n

Therefore, you must always think positively. And you have to clean the slate every single day. You can\u2019t carry over anything negative with you. If you carry negative thoughts, it\u2019s like adding bricks to a backpack when you\u2019re about to go on a race against Usain Bolt. You want to release all the stress, forgive others, eliminate burdens, make amends and be transparent. That allows you not to hold and carry stress mentally.<\/p>\n

When Shai did not receive high-major college offers right away, he could have thought, \u201cMan, I\u2019m done, I\u2019m just going to go to Butler.\u201d Xavier wouldn\u2019t even offer him. But he just stayed positive.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cListen, my time will come. My time will come.\u201d He wasn\u2019t thinking about the worst-case scenario. He was thinking: \u201cI believe in my work. I believe in my path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, he went to Kentucky, one of the top schools at the time, with many five-star recruits. With positive thinking and a strong work ethic, he ended up being the best player on the team, despite having all those five stars.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the best example, right in our face.<\/p>\n

Run your race<\/p>\n

Shai is not the fastest, not the strongest, not the quickest. But he knows his work ethic is there, and he knows he has the mental capacity, thanks to his mom and dad and everyone around him.<\/p>\n

We all know kids who, as 8th graders, have muscles bulging out of their necks. They jump high, they run fast, they\u2019re tall. You could look at them and think: \u201cMan, they already beat me.\u201d<\/p>\n

No. Everybody has a race.<\/p>\n

Shai has embodied this. He was someone that people said, \u201cWhy is he even going to Kentucky? He isn\u2019t good enough. Why is he going in the lottery? He can\u2019t even do anything. Why are they trading Paul George for him? He\u2019s not even that good.\u201d To take the metaphor a step further: If he were looking left and right while he was running his race, he probably would have run out of his lane and been disqualified. But he just kept looking forward and running his race.<\/p>\n

Even to this day, there\u2019s all this talk: \u201cWho is better than who? Is this guy better than him?\u201d He doesn\u2019t care about that. He finds motivation in it, but he still runs his race. And, boom, here we are today.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t worry about anyone on the left and right of you. Stay in your lane, go as fast as you can and give your personal best. Just run your race.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe the hype<\/p>\n

Believing in the hype will crush you in any sport, in any walk of life. No matter what people tell you \u2014 how great you are or how bad you are \u2014 you can\u2019t worry about people\u2019s low or high expectations for you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy when people think you\u2019re not good enough. That\u2019s low-hanging motivation. But when people tell you you\u2019ve arrived, that\u2019s hard. You cannot believe how good you are, because it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

If you have your goals written down and they are high, it doesn\u2019t matter what anyone else says. Shai does not believe any of the hype. He downplays all of it.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re consistent, you don\u2019t change the pace at which you\u2019re moving. You don\u2019t change because someone said something nice about you. It has to come from within.<\/p>\n

Shai will tell you: \u201cI\u2019m consistent.\u201d He values that.<\/p>\n

Consistency doesn\u2019t change with emotions. It\u2019s something that\u2019s always going to happen. And Shai has been consistent as long as I\u2019ve known him.<\/p>\n

\u2014 As told to Jayson Jenks<\/p>\n

Illustration: Dan Goldfarb \/ The Athletic; Joshua Gateley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic\u2019s desk covering leadership, personal development and success…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,2284,3075,354,6,231,772,1544,179,1697,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-75747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-kentucky-wildcats","12":"tag-mens-college-basketball","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-ncaa","15":"tag-ncaa-basketball","16":"tag-ncaab","17":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","18":"tag-peak","19":"tag-sports-business"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114623915421778665","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}