Why some of the best athletes in the world pretend to be someone else

This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.Before he became one of the best basketball players in the world, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a 13-year-old point guard with a significant problem: He was tiny.Standing around 5-foot-6, Gilgeous-Alexander possessed the physique of a garden rake — skinny and slight. He would wake before 6 a.m. each day to work on his game at St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School, but his size presented obvious limitations. So Dwayne Washington, his club coach and a teacher at the school, suggested he pretend to be Allen Iverson, the undersized guard whose fearless style had revolutionized the NBA.Advertisement