Mentorship as a Driving Force: Giannis Antetokounmpo wins the 2021 NBA Championship
Three ways effective mentorship influenced Giannis’ path to excellence, including the mentoring role of Kobe Bryant
Last week, the Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA championship since 1971. During the game post-conference, we witnessed the profound appreciation basketball superstar Giannis Antetokoumpo has for those who had helped him advance in his career.
Last week, I also learned that Giannis enjoys having Chick-fil-A for breakfast as a celebratory meal, which, in addition to valuing mentorship, is something else we have in common.
Giannis started playing basketball between ages 13–15, even though he admits not enjoying the game then. He was inspired to play basketball by Greek player Sofoklis Schortsanitis (“Baby Shaq”), who he watched proudly represent Grece in the Olympics. As a more pressing matter for Giannis, becoming a professional basketball player seemed like a viable path to support his family.
A closer look at Giannis’ journey, from a street vendor selling CDs in Grece to an NBA champion, will be unveiled in an upcoming biography by Mirin Fader. At a glance, at least three aspects of effective mentorship and coaching appear to shape Giannis’ accomplishments.
The need to get better
With sharp self-awareness, Giannis recognized early in his career the need to improve many aspects of his game and physique. Many tall, athletic kids around the world shared the same goal of becoming professional basketball players. Giannis, however, harnessed an honest self-assessment to trigger a change in his situation in the direction of his goals.
Before making it to the NBA, he put ego aside, was honest with himself, and recognized:
“I said ok, I am not ready to play in the NBA. I know I am slow. I am not strong enough. I see it. I cannot compete with these guys.”
(Source: The Woj Pod)
Now, once part of the NBA, his growth mindset was active since day 1:
“People say I play like Kevin Durant but now in the NBA, you don’t look at other players. You look at yourself and how you’re going to improve. I hope to improve. I work hard.”
Mentorship for career advancement is futile when a mentee is not self-aware nor has the resolve to learn and get better. This determination provides the fertile soil from which a mentor’s advice and coaching can flourish.
The mentor’s challenge
A plan to simply “get better” won’t get it done, however. How much better? Better relative to who? In the process of getting better, what’s important and what’s not?
Enter the late Kobe Bryant.
In the summer of 2018, Giannis sought a private workout with Kobe. For Giannis, it wasn’t just a workout. Giannis arrived at the gym early carrying a notebook filled with questions about different aspects of the game and off-season prep. This information would enable Giannis to focus his efforts. The overall goal: get better.
I am sure Giannis received a lot of advice from Kobe on how to improve his game. But more importantly, Kobe helped define Giannis’ ambition by applying a powerful mentoring tactic. Kobe gave Giannis a challenge.
“MVP”
With this challenge, the goal of getting better evolved into a concrete one: become the Most Valuable Player of the NBA.
Two years after the challenge, Giannis won the MVP Award. The year after, he won it again.
As if taken straight from a mentoring playbook, Kobe Bryant immediately gave Giannis his next goal:
In 2021, Giannis won the NBA championship.
Doing it for the people who believed in you
Challenging your mentees has the clear benefit of helping them calibrate their ambitions. In my view, there’s a secondary benefit as well. Challenging your mentees fuels perseverance — even if you’re not present, it serves as a line of motivation.
When a mentor challenges us, it is because they believe we can get there. They trust we will work to get there. As mentees, we generally don’t want to let our mentors down. But, more importantly, remembering there’s someone who believed we could do it acts like a life jacket in the ocean storm of self-limiting thoughts that break in our brain when facing adversity.
After winning the championship with Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo stated:
“I had to work hard because people believed I could do it.”
In a separate interview, he added,
“It’s an amazing feeling. Just doing it for the people who believed in you”.
Altogether, these aspects of mentorship synergistically acted as a driving force that enabled Giannis Antetokoumpo to get to the top. From the mentee’s perspective, being determined to get better takes precedence over any advice a mentor could provide. As mentors, challenging our mentees helps them set specific goals while also serving as a battery pack for encouragement.
