Giannis Antetokounmpo works his way to No. 22 in The Athletic's ‘The Basketball 100'

New York Times

14-02-2025

'The Basketball 100' is the definitive ranking of the 100 greatest NBA players of all time from The Athletic's team of award-winning writers and analysts, including veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the book, which also features a foreword by Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.
'The Basketball 100' is available now. Read David Aldridge's introduction and all of the excerpts here.
Khris Middleton heard Giannis Antetokounmpo's screams.
Antetokounmpo, the two-time NBA regular-season MVP — the Milwaukee Bucks' best player and greatest hope to win their first NBA title in half a century — was writhing in pain with 7 minutes, 14 seconds remaining in the third quarter of Game 4 of the 2021 Eastern Conference finals in Atlanta.
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'I heard him yell,' Middleton said after the Game 4 loss to the Hawks. 'I was looking up, so I couldn't really see exactly what happened.'
What happened could have changed the course of NBA history. But, because of who Antetokounmpo is, he wouldn't let it.
Antetokounmpo was helping from the weak side to block Hawks center Clint Capela's alley-oop dunk attempt. In doing so, Antetokounmpo and Capela collided. As they landed, Capela fell on Antetokounmpo's left leg and the force bent the Bucks forward's knee in a direction that it wasn't supposed to bend. Antetokounmpo screamed. Middleton, now with the Washington Wizards, saw his then-teammate on the State Farm Arena floor in pain and called a timeout.
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The Bucks postgame fears were confirmed the next day: a left knee hyperextension. The projected timeline for Antetokounmpo's return would have been devastating for most people.
'They told me six to eight weeks,' Antetokounmpo said in December 2023. 'Six to eight weeks.'
Antetokounmpo quickly clarified.
'Six to eight weeks and then we re-evaluate,' he said. 'That doesn't mean you play. It means you start going back in and like jogging.'
As you now know, Antetokounmpo did not take six weeks to return to action. Instead, he returned six days after his injury and played in Game 1 of the 2021 NBA Finals against the Phoenix Suns. On July 20, three weeks after his injury, Antetokounmpo scored 50 points in Game 6 to lead the Bucks to a championship and win NBA Finals MVP.
But this story isn't about the 2021 NBA Finals. Or the accolades that Antetokounmpo has collected in his NBA career. It is about Antetokounmpo's defining characteristic: his will to get better season after season, month after month, day after day. In those six days following his injury, Antetokounmpo, famous for his ferocious focus and work ethic, bent NBA history to his will, cementing his legacy as one of basketball's all-time greats.
Entering the 2021 postseason, Antetokounmpo, then 26, had already put himself among the NBA's elite in eight seasons.
The Bucks selected the skinny 6-foot-9, 190-pound 18-year-old with the hard-to-pronounce name with the No. 15 pick in the 2013 draft. Most analysts saw Antetokounmpo's potential because of his ballhandling and court vision but couldn't see him playing much in his rookie year. But after picking up five DNPs in the first 14 games of his rookie season, Antetokounmpo broke into head coach Larry Drew's rotation and started 23 games for the Bucks. He averaged 6.8 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 24.6 minutes per game in a high-energy, complementary role.
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From there, Antetokounmpo, who told ESPN before the 2013 draft how he improved ('It's simple: 365 days per year in the gym for five to seven hours. Nothing comes easy.'), played in 81 games his sophomore season, starting 71, including the final 68 he played. Since his third season, Antetokounmpo started every game he's played but one, becoming the franchise cornerstone in the process. In 2017 he earned his first All-Star nod, was named Second Team All-NBA, his first All-NBA selection and was named the NBA's Most Improved Player.
From that fourth season on, Antetokounmpo has been a perennial All-Star and All-NBA player. By the time the 2021 playoffs began, he was five-time All-NBA and a five-time All-Star. He won back-to-back MVPs in '19 and '20 and Defensive Player of the Year in '20. Winning MVP and DPOY in the same season put him into elite company, as only Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon had done it.
However, he was missing the one accolade that is the crown jewel of any player's career: an NBA championship.
But because of the injury, that quest was in jeopardy.
While such a dramatic injury would have destroyed most people mentally, Antetokounmpo was undaunted and the maniacal drive and work ethic that made him elite kicked in.
Moments after lying in a heap, Antetokounmpo walked off the floor with an arm draped around his brother Thanasis and made his way back to the locker room. After a short time being evaluated by the medical staff, he returned to the bench.
'They said, 'Giannis, you cannot go back into the game,' Antetokounmpo recalled. 'I said, 'No, I'm going back in the game.' I came out to the game. I saw that (Bogdan) Bogdanović hit a 3 to take it from 14 to 17 or something.'
'I said, 'OK, let me see if I can fight through this game.' Maybe we're going to have a chance to win and I make it worse or I go back and recover and try to get the next game. Well, while I was going back, my knee was huge. And when I went back (to the locker room a second time), they — the doctors and all that — said, 'Giannis, you can not go back in the game.''
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Antetokounmpo made his way back to the locker room and remained there, preparing to get on the team plane and head back to Milwaukee for Game 5. But the medical staff told Antetokounmpo he needed to do a lot more work before he could just play in that Thursday's Game 5.
'I said, 'Hey, man, what are we doing?'' Antetokounmpo explained. 'They said, 'You have to get evaluated, do the MRI.' I said, 'Yeah. Well, I'm playing Thursday.' They were looking at me like …'
Antetokounmpo gave a bug-eyed look of disbelief and shrugged his shoulders.
''Guys, I'm playing on Thursday.' That's the mindset. Everybody's looking at me crazy. 'You're not playing. You're done. Even if you make the Finals, you're done.' I said, 'No, I'm playing on Thursday.''
When the team plane touched down in Milwaukee in the early morning hours of June 30, reality hit Antetokounmpo. He had worn a compression sleeve on his left leg and then thrown on a Game Ready active compression and cold therapy leg sleeve over the top of that to keep swelling down during the flight, but it didn't help all that much.
'That was the closest thing I've ever had to an injury that was unknown,' Antetokounmpo said. 'When I got up off the floor, they were like, 'Did you feel something?' I was like, 'I felt a pop.' I didn't know what it was. And then I looked at my knee and it was huge.
'Coming down the stairs from the chartered flight, they gave me these — how you call this? — crutches. And I told myself, I'll never have crutches. They said, 'Giannis, you need this.' I said, 'No way.' I said, 'No. I'm going to walk out of here.' Never. Never. The way I came in as a little 18 year old, that's the way I'm going to leave. I'm going to be 38, 40 years old. The same way. I don't come here, walking in and (leaving) here on crutches. No way, man.'
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For the first time in his life, Antetokounmpo consumed an Advil.
'I don't take pills,' Antetokounmpo said. 'But yeah, that was the first time. I said, 'OK.''
If Antetokounmpo wanted to get back on the floor, though, the work needed to start on the morning of June 30. He put himself on a strict schedule.
'It was a 24-hour quest,' Antetokounmpo said. 'I woke up, did my treatment, went to the AlterG, the antigravity treadmill thing. I walked. Then I jogged. Then I sprint. Then I went to the leg press, and I pushed five kilos, then pushed seven kilos, then I pushed 10 kilos. Then I cut and then I spin.
'It was like that every single day. Then I went back home, then treatment. Back home, then treatment. In my treatment, I woke up early in the morning, four a.m., more treatment. It was a journey. It was 24 hours.'
At this point, Antetokounmpo is out of breath, doing the workout in the back hallways of Fiserv Forum at extraordinary pace as he describes the intensity of the regimen. His ferocity stunned the training staff.
'They were looking at me like I was crazy,' Antetokounmpo admitted.
Antetokounmpo was resolute in his belief that he would be getting back on the floor, but it was hard for his teammates to believe because Antetokounmpo continued to miss the dates he promised a return.
'My teammates all looked at me like I was crazy. 'I'll be ready for Game 7.' But the staff is basically telling them like, 'He ain't gonna be ready.' They won Game 6. I said, 'Great. Now, instead of two days, I have three days.''
After Game 6 in Atlanta on July 3, the Bucks made their way to Phoenix in the early morning hours of July 4, and Antetokounmpo's process started all over again with Game 1 scheduled for July 6. Antetokounmpo went through his rehab regimen and got himself ready for one final test.
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Because of the Bucks' required NBA Finals practice in the Phoenix Suns' arena in the mid-afternoon, Antetokounmpo had to get ready in the morning for a workout that would decide his status for Game 1 of the 2021 NBA Finals.
'They had me jumping, touching the backboard, going for the rebound, throwing the ball, rim running, taking it and dunking, sliding and then shooting,' Antetokounmpo said. 'And then going to the other corner, dunking again, then jumping. Like they had me doing a draft workout!
'I got pissed too. After 45 minutes, because the next day, we were playing a game, I turn and the doctors were right there and I was like yelling, 'What the f— is this, man? Is this a f—— draft workout? I'm f—— ready to play.''
Later in the day, when the Bucks went to the arena for the closed portion of their league-mandated practice session, Antetokounmpo made sure his teammates knew that the claims he had made leading up to the game were true this time around. What once seemed like an impossibility would be happening the next day when the Bucks took the court for their first NBA Finals game.
'After that (workout), I went back to the hotel, took a shower, did treatment, and then it was the time that we had media with the early practice,' Antetokounmpo said. 'So I went. And Jrue (Holiday) gave me the ball first possession. I took it and dunked it behind my head just to set the tone to my teammates. Like, 'I'm here, I'm here. I'm here.'
'And everybody was looking like, 'Slow down, Giannis,' and I was like, 'No. I'm here.''
On the morning of July 6, the Bucks upgraded Antetokounmpo's injury status to questionable; 30 minutes before tip-off, the Bucks made it official.
'As I went on (in the series), I was in a place, my mindset was that I was just so, so blessed to be able to participate,' Antetokounmpo said. 'Nothing else I cared about. The pressure, the this, the that, bright lights, nothing. I cared about nothing else.
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'I was just so happy because this (opportunity to play in the NBA Finals) was taken away from me. I worked extremely hard that year and throughout the playoffs and it was just so draining and exhausting against Brooklyn. And I was like, 'This is going to be taken away from me.' And it didn't. I worked hard. I got back in like six days and then, long story short, we won the championship.'
In Game 2, Antetokounmpo managed to show off the skills that made him a two-time NBA MVP and put up 42 points on 15-of-22 shooting and also added 12 rebounds and four assists. In Game 3, with the Bucks trailing in the series 2-0, he tallied 41 points and 13 rebounds to help the Bucks grab their first win of the series, joining Shaquille O'Neal as the only other player to put up at least 40 points and 10 rebounds in consecutive NBA Finals games.
With the game on the line in Game 4, the 2020 NBA Defensive Player of the Year made one of the best defensive plays in NBA Finals history. The Bucks led 101–99 with 1:20 remaining when Suns guard Devin Booker sprinted off two screens to take a dribble handoff from Deandre Ayton at the top of the key.
Booker drew the attention of Antetokounmpo and then lofted a one-handed lob toward Ayton rolling to the rim. In one motion, Antetokounmpo spun, took two large steps, and leaped toward the rim. He jumped off one leg, his left leg that was not supposed to be ready for action, and propelled himself to swat Ayton's two-hand dunk attempt and preserve the Bucks' two-point lead.
In Game 6, Antetokounmpo put together one of the greatest closeout games of all-time, putting up 50 points, 14 rebounds, two assists, and five blocks to secure the franchise's second NBA championship, their first since 1971, and earn the 2021 NBA Finals MVP.
By winning a championship, Antetokounmpo validated all of the individual accolades he had accrued in the first eight years of his career. But he was only able to accomplish that by willing himself back into game action through the same dogged determination that allowed him to make it as an 18-year-old Greek living in the United States for the first time during his rookie season.
'Also, I prayed a lot,' Antetokounmpo said of his miraculous recovery. 'I prayed a lot because I believe that God puts you in positions that you're supposed to be. Lose or win, God put you in that position. And I told Him, I said, 'I know that you're giving me the toughest challenge in my life because, you know I can handle it and I can deal with it.''
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While Antetokounmpo enjoyed the trip down memory lane, he ended his conversation with The Athletic on a simple note.
'But we haven't won one since then,' Antetokounmpo said.
That desire for more is what continues to make Antetokounmpo one of the best players of the NBA's current era. It's why he has been unanimously voted First Team All-NBA in the two seasons since the championship, giving him five consecutive unanimous First Team All-NBA selections, and finished Top 3 in NBA MVP voting in those same seasons. In 2024, he made his sixth consecutive All-NBA First Team.
Throughout his career, Antetokounmpo has made it clear he would like to play 20 seasons. He has just passed the halfway point and already accomplished enough to make him one of the all-time greats. But if Antetokounmpo has shown anything in his first decade in the league, it is that he will continue to put in the necessary work to get better, win games and help himself and his team rebound from disappointing moments.
Even if that means recovering from a six-week injury in just six days.
Career stats (through the 2023-24 season): G: 792, Pts.: 23.4, Reb.: 9.8, Ast.: 4.9, Win Shares: 109.3, PER: 25.4
Achievements: NBA MVP ('19, '20), Eight-time All-NBA, Eight-time All-Star, NBA Champion ('21), NBA Finals MVP ('21), Defensive Player of the Year ('20), Most Improved Player ('17)
Excerpted from 'The Basketball 100' published by William Morrow. Copyright © 2024 by The Athletic Media Company. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers
(Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; Photo: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)