Shooting is the NBA’s most valuable skill, but the Bucks, who play Game 4 of the NBA Finals tonight, have long minutes for two players who aren’t elite: Pat Connaughton and Giannis Antetokounmpo. They succeed in different ways, but especially by being incredible athletes and—as it happens—workout partners.

In a 2019 TrueHoop series, we examined the mental approaches of elite athletes. Pat and Giannis came up. I visited them in the locker room after a big win over the 76ers:

“Some nuts stuff”

By the time the team hit the showers, there was a good feeling among the Bucks. Sure, the visitors’ locker room may have been a little threadbare, tattered carpets, nothing close to a window. The showers, around some steamy corner from where the team dressed, barely seemed to have lights at all. But this team had stared adversity in the face and come away with a mathematical lock on the best record in the NBA. Teams like that sometimes win titles.

If the NBA is a dreamland, to be in a room like this, …