Anadolu Efes guard Elijah Bryant takes you behind the scenes during preseason, from a chaotic photoshoot to traveling from Venice to Greece. He reflects on a recent loss using ideas from Atomic Habits, then gears up for a preseason game against his former team, Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Photoshoot full on. What time did you get here?
I was here at—
knocks down his second triple. Baseline was open, he kicked it.
Good morning, guys, and yes, we are off again. It's time to leave the family again. Come here. Okay, okay, give me a hug, please.
Dad's going bye-bye. Dad's going on the airplane.
Give me a hug. Give me a hug. Come on.
I love you.
Daddy out. I love you.
I'm going on the airplane, okay?
He's going bye-bye.
Okay, listen, listen, listen. Let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you.
Hey, hey! Oh, blah blah!
I love you, Nunez. Should we say prayers? I got a whole car like I'm a movie star.
What is this? What is this? Snacks?
Makeup? These are the best gummy bears of the lot.
Brought me breakfast.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you. Can you sign it? That's fun. So much. Thank you. Sorry for that.
No worries.
Treat me like a movie star around here. All right, so that wasn't my trailer, that was T-Boy's trailer. I have my own separate trailer.
Trailer.
This is ridiculous. Yo, and we got new jerseys. Wait, what?
These are fire. T-boy, why are you here?
Why are you here?
T-boy, get out of here. What time did you get here?
I was here at—
what time is it right now?
I think I was here at 8. Yeah, no, you weren't.
Almost.
I was in your trailer. Yeah, they put me in your trailer at first.
Cameras.
Okay.
Come on, T-boy.
3, 2, 1, action.
Well, this is a full-on photo shoot, full-on everything. They gave us an iPad 9, 256GB, which I don't really need an iPad, so I'm probably gonna give it to my son. But thank you, Denise Bank. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for all the people working it. I really appreciate it.
Now it's time to go to Italy.
We just got to, uh, Venice and we'll be here for a day. We're here for only one game and then we head to Greece for the tournament thing. How many of you guys ever been to Venice?
I've been one time. Video.
Hey, hey, Mom!
We got to get some pasta now. Whoa, oh, yeah. So, you're not gonna try it?
Everybody's trying, but I like taking risks.
Okay.
I think I'm going to go with the, um, the Amarena cherry and the, uh, regular white one.
You want a cone or a cup?
Uh, I think cone.
Okay, smart.
Cone, yes please. Oh, Serbia!
Oh, maestro!
We've been looking for a lunch place, but I've been telling Tibor that if Ratatouille is not going to cook my lunch, I'm not going to eat it.
He is French. He's a French rat.
A mouse.
I don't know.
It's not an Italian one.
Here they're having the best pasta. What do you rate it? What do you rate it out of 10?
Huh?
Out of 10, what do you rate it?
I like it a lot, like 9. It has to be like some space, you know, like there's for sure better.
7.5. 7.5.
Okay.
7.1.
It's soft. Oh my God.
6.5.
6.5?
Really?
I like the pasta.
I mean, the pasta is good, but the sauce is—
I say 8.
I cannot go under 8.
I like it.
What's the name of this place?
Fresh Pasta to Go.
We're sitting, we're sitting, we're not even going.
7 out of 10.
So took the pasta to sit. We changed our mind in the group, we changed our mind because they forgot to put the chicken into the pasta. Yeah, there's no chicken. That's a pity really because we ordered, we paid for the chicken. Pollo. There's no pollo in the pappardella.
My name is Colombia.
What?
We're still wearing masks anyway.
If you don't give—
Yeah, save. Here, open that door. Next stop, next stop.
Australia. Australia, yes. For example, this is one of the best in town for me. Everything written here is in authentic Danish. I don't know how much familiar we are with the history of this land, but if you want, I can tell you. We went by it. We walked by it. Yeah, go there and listen. Maybe we were at the bridge. We walked by the restaurant, probably. Oh well, it is not on the main streets like what you can see.
It's next to the bridge. All right, so today was extremely fun. Obviously yesterday we lost the game, but we'll learn from it, continue to get better. Now we're in Greece.
I love Greece.
I'm gonna relax a little bit.
It's late.
One thing I was reading this book again, Atomic Habits. Young hoopers, don't focus on your goals, focus on your systems, because your systems will allow you to be happy even when you reach your quote-unquote goals. I thought that I would share that with you guys.
Bro, it's wild.
So this trip I really haven't been talking to you guys too much about what's going on per se on the basketball court, but again, it's preseason, a bunch of guys, a bunch of new guys. Trying to learn our system, what we do, fit in. Plus we're missing Shane. Still no excuse for losing, but you gotta take everything with a grain of salt and look at it as what can we learn from this situation. Today we play my old team, Maccabi, and should be a fun game.
Super low, and when Bryce starts to slow and grit, it's really high.
