Two hours before tipoff, in the soft glow of a projection screen that loops game film inside a cramped visitors’ locker room, Harry Giles bends into squat after squat with a dumbbell in each hand.
His face sparkling with beads of sweat and his sleeveless black shirt clinging to his chest, he doesn’t deviate from the exercise while conversing with team staffers or firing one-liners at fellow rookies De’Aaron Fox and Justin Jackson.
The biggest challenge, Giles says, isn’t the grueling, seemingly-unending strength-building routine. It’s continuing to rehab as his first-year teammates change from dark jeans and polos to game uniforms at their lockers, when there’s no jersey to be found among his own personal belongings.