Not to take this thread completely off-topic but isn't that a cop-out? The desire to work hard may be partially based on experience, but there is an element of choice in there. Not everyone has Ray Allen's OCD or Javale Mcgee's ADHD to thank for their ability to adhere to training regimens.
It is in no way a cop-out. I take pride in my actions and in the fact that they represent the actions of those that raised me and made me who I am. It also frees me to look away from myself and at the bigger picture - In every moment I perform a meaningful action (namely: time at work, around younger generations, future educators, working on education policy in DC, etc) I'm confident that I'm using the full breadth of my experiences to help others. My existing provides good things for others. I feel like its only when I freed myself up from believing in free will that I really started to eliminate a lot of gender/race/age/etc bias and discrimination from my own thought processes (which is not to say I've eliminated all of them, but I'll always work on it).
We all look at things from a different perspective, and I respect that others don't look at it the way that I do. I suffered from a lot of anxiety and depression when I was young, and I feel like this view has really allowed me to push that away and become a productive and strong person.
To keep it on topic, you're right that those guys are unique. They're 'defective' in a way - whether it works to the good or to the bad, they're broken. Ray Allen has managed to find comfort in routines that made him an epic performer on a grand stage, turned his weakness into a strength. You're right about all of that. HE did do it. But that doesn't mean he has free will, to my eyes. Someone guided him to that ball. Something or someone gave him an amazing first experience. Something managed to kick that desire to obsess over shooting a basketball as a salve for his OCD. For Javale McGee - he didn't overcome. Somewhere up the line, someone failed him. Some inspiration didn't come through. Some experience didn't get him to take his medication and training his focus seriously (although I don't know the true extent of his ADHD - it IS possible he's chemically damaged beyond a certain level of focus, but I'm too lazy to do research on it right now).
You're just a product of your experiences. It doesn't cheapen you, your decisions, who you are. It makes you all the richer - your favorite character in every normal linear piece of literature has a predestined ending - it all builds word by word and chapter by chapter - into what they are at any given moment. You're the culmination of your experiences, and your value comes from such.
