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Jul 21, 2021
7:59:50pm
CougarTailDevourer The Dude Abides
Giannis practiced mean mugging after dunks
Giannis would stand in front of the mirror and practice his scowl. He’d squint his eyes, suck in his teeth. His nose would wrinkle; his forehead would tighten. His lips would curl, and then he’d let out a grunt.

He was trying to look more aggressive, less adorable; more intimidating, less innocent. He needed a new identity heading into his second NBA season—one vastly different from the goofy, endearing rookie discovering smoothies for the first time.

He needed to get mean.

“He had to practice it because he’s not that guy,” says Skip Robinson, then Bucks vice president of community relations and player development. “He’s a lovable guy. A nice gentleman.”

Giannis didn’t want to be seen as a nice gentleman on the court; he wanted to be seen as someone who would tear your heart out. He tried to pattern his scowl after Russell Westbrook’s scowl. Giannis loved Westbrook: his demeanor, his speed, but especially his scowl. Giannis came into practice once, scowling and grunting. “This is my new thing,” Giannis told his teammates.
They ignored him. Laughed a bit. But Giannis insisted on impressing them: He flexed his muscles after bench-pressing and flashed his scowl again, hoping his teammates would appreciate the intensity of his grunt. “Bro,” Brandon Knight told him, “you still don’t have any muscles. Relaaaaax.”

Giannis’s teammates found it hilarious when he’d attempt the scowl after a dunk, something he started doing toward the end of his rookie season. The first time he did it, against the Pistons, he ran back to the other end of the court with so much aggression even Caron Butler was surprised. “I didn’t know where the (redacted) that came from,” Butler says, laughing.

Afterward, his teammates asked him, “What is that? Where’d you get that from?” They assumed he’d learned the scowl from YouTube—where he learned everything in those days.

Giannis laughed. “Oh,” Giannis said casually in a “this old thing?” kind of tone, “I took it from Westbrook.”

Giannis’s scowl seemed out of place. Manufactured. “We’d be like, ‘Oh, he must have practiced that at home today,’” Knight says. The scowl was coming along, but it still wasn’t loud enough, mean enough. Convincing enough. “You gotta work on your roar,” Knight would sarcastically advise Giannis. “You gotta work on your yell. We gotta get you right, man.

This message has been modified
Originally posted on Jul 21, 2021 at 7:59:50pm
Message modified by CougarTailDevourer on Jul 21, 2021 at 9:39:15pm
CougarTailDevourer
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