Giannis

by Mirin Fader

  After one of those nights, Geiger and Giannis returned to Giannis’s apartment. Geiger lived in the same apartment complex, just a short walk away. It was around 11:00 p.m., and Giannis was exhausted, sprawled out on the couch. He barely fit: his feet dangled over the armrest of a nearby chair. Geiger realized he had game film to analyze that night for the coaching staff before practice the next morning.

  “I gotta go break down film,” Geiger said. “Have a good rest of your night.”

  “Come on, man,” Giannis said. “Don’t leave, man.”

  “I have to break down this game. The coaches want it for tomorrow.”

  “Well… go get your computer!”

  Geiger sensed something innocent, something soft, in his friend’s insistence. So Geiger relented, went back to his own apartment to retrieve his computer, and started breaking down the game in Giannis’s place. Around midnight, Geiger sent the video to the coaching staff, relieved to have made deadline. He was working twelve-hour days, and looking after Giannis felt somewhat like a full-time job. He enjoyed it immensely, but like Giannis, he was working to the bone.

  “You going to get to bed?” Ross asked. “We have practice pretty early.”

  Giannis paused. His voice grew thin, barely audible. “Will you just… like… stay the night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, man. I got, like, two beds in the other room,” Giannis said. “I don’t want to sleep alone anymore.”

  “All right. I’ll stay.” Geiger took a pillow, went to another room, and dozed off. Giannis went to his own room, feeling a little less alone.

  The next morning, as the two hopped into Geiger’s Subaru for practice, Geiger realized he had crossed a threshold: he had gained Giannis’s trust, something Giannis still allows few to do. As a child, Giannis learned that trusting people was dangerous. Trusting people could get his parents deported. Trusting people could let others see that there was vulnerability in him. Fear in him. And he could not, would not, let anyone see that.

  But maybe it was OK that Geiger saw that. Maybe it was OK to truly let someone see him.

  Giannis kept letting bits of himself spill out as time wore on. Once, he and Geiger were walking to see a movie at a local mall and Christmas music was playing. Giannis broke out in song, singing each word perfectly.

  “How do you know the words to this song?” Geiger said.

  “What do you mean?” Giannis said.

  “It’s all English. How do you know the words to this song?”

  “Oh. Growing up, me and my brothers would go door-to-door and Christmas carol for extra money.”

  Memories like that would prick Giannis at random moments. When he would be walking down the street. Warming up for practice. Putting on his worn-down sneakers. For a moment, he was back in Sepolia. Back on the side of the road, a child trying to smile, hoping the sunglasses he dangled in the wind would go for three euros instead of two.

  * * *

  The more Drew watched Giannis, the more compassion swelled inside him. He’d grown concerned. Protective, even. He knew his rookie missed home. Felt like every day was heavy, bringing new challenges, new concepts to learn. And Drew began to view Giannis as one of his own.

  Drew had three, his oldest around the same age as Giannis. Every time Giannis would fumble a pass, miss a play signal, Drew would think of his oldest son, Larry II, who was playing professionally at the time, also struggling to adapt to a new situation. Drew would remember their phone conversations, how he’d listen patiently on the other end, thinking to himself, Man, I wish they had somebody there for him to talk to about whatever things he was dealing with.

  He vowed to be that person for Giannis. Whatever he was dealing with. On the court, off the court. He gave Giannis his cell number early and told him he would be there for him if he ever wanted to talk. The two did text often, late into the night.

  “Sometimes you need that father figure to sit down with him and talk to you, and that’s all I tried to do with Giannis. I didn’t try to do anything that I wouldn’t do for my own boys,” Drew says. “I know the importance of having a person there that you can really confide in, a person that you can really trust in, a person that you know that has your best interests at heart.”

  Some days Drew would deliver criticism harshly, but more often than not, the critiques were delivered in a calm, nurturing tone. He saw the way the rookie was suffering. “His family not being there, it can be a very, very traumatic experience for him,” Drew says. “Loneliness, that’s one of the worst feelings in the world. I know what that had to be doing to him.”

  Drew was frustrated himself. His team was dreadful. Everyone was miserable. Everyone was learning on the job. “It was a trying year for me,” Drew says. “I mean, it really was.” He had no choice but to play Giannis. And he felt Giannis would get better by learning while in high-pressure situations. “He [Drew] was really flexible. Really patient with Giannis,” Butler says. “He needed to be, because Giannis needed somebody to take the time towards his development.”

  Drew began to view coaching as teaching, trying to imagine how his own sons would feel during each moment. Drew would automatically repeat his phrases twice, understanding there was a possibility Giannis didn’t understand. “I didn’t want to overwhelm him,” Drew says.

  Giannis was more than a project to him. Giannis was a person who needed love. Care. His emotional well-being was a priority for the organization.

  “Having another Black male figure for him that’s older, Giannis needed that,” says Hackett, the former strength-and-conditioning coach. Hackett could spot lonely on anyone. He had spent the past eleven years with the Mavericks, around older players, younger players. Quiet players, gregarious players. And he knew the truth: when they went home, rested their heads on their pillows at night, they were vulnerable. More vulnerable than they’d ever let anyone glimpse.

  Hackett knew, no matter how cheery Giannis was, how much he raved about a new food or song, he was hurting inside. His past was tugging at him, motivating him but threatening to pull him down.

  “You get to a certain point in your life, as a Black male, where you’re living a double life from where you come from and who you are with your family, than what society sees you as,” Hackett says, “because they look at you as you’re just the NBA superstar player. You’re not supposed to have any problems, and they do. They’re human. They have problems just like everybody else.”

  * * *

  One bright spot was that Thanasis had moved to the States to play for the Delaware 87ers of the then D League, the NBA’s development league (now called the G League). Whenever Giannis could, he’d fly Thanasis to Milwaukee for one or two days. It made both of them feel some sense of normalcy.

  Thanasis came to Milwaukee for Thanksgiving. When he arrived at Giannis’s apartment, Giannis came down to the lobby and paused, looking at his brother. They had endured so much change in such a short period that both nearly broke into tears. They embraced, hugging tightly, neither wanting to let go.

  The brothers were both still adjusting to American restaurants. They had gone to Morton’s The Steakhouse for a team dinner. Opening the menu, Giannis was shocked: Sixty dollars? How could a steak, a piece of meat, be sixty dollars? He could have bought a lot with sixty dollars. Sneakers. Three shirts. Paid a utility bill.

  Thanasis experienced a similar moment on another occasion while in Philadelphia, after the Bucks had played the Sixers. He and Giannis found themselves in a fancy restaurant, skimming the menus, when Giannis told Thanasis, “Get whatever you want to eat.”

  Thanasis kept silent.

  “Whatever you want,” Giannis said again, trying to fill the awkward silence.

  They continued to stare, and stare, until Thanasis ordered a salad. Giannis did too. As they ate, the distance between their past lives and their new lives never seemed greater.

  * * *

  The day after Thanksgiving, the Bucks were in Charlott
e for a matchup against the Hornets. The team had a Thanksgiving dinner at a local convention hall. Giannis sat at a table, scrolling on his phone while sitting next to Oppenheimer and Cody Ross, the video coordinator.

  “What are you looking at?” Ross asked.

  “Black Friday deals.”

  “Giannis,” Oppenheimer said, “you’re an NBA player now. You don’t need to be looking at deals.”

  “Nope,” Giannis said, shaking his head. “No matter how big I get, no matter if I become a superstar, I will always be looking for deals. I am always going to be me.”

  * * *

  What if we all went to sleep and woke up and we were back where we started?

  The thought would pop into Giannis’s head at any moment. His brothers’ too. They would often joke to each other about the possibility, laughing hard over Skype. But underneath the laughter was fear. Real fear. It was almost terrifying, contemplating the way things could be taken away quicker than they came.

  It didn’t help that people back in Greece began to look at the family differently. Alex remembers people looking at him strangely, thinking, Oh, he’s acting different because his brother got drafted. They’d text him to play basketball, and if he missed the text or wouldn’t respond in time, they’d text him, “Oh, you can’t hang out because your brother’s in the NBA?” It infuriated Alex. “I was the same person as I was before,” he says.

  His friends didn’t understand how precarious Giannis’s situation felt. Yes, he was in the NBA right now, but what about tomorrow? Tomorrow was always tenuous. Always to be determined.

  What if we all went to sleep and woke up and we were back where we started?

  That was particularly terrifying for Giannis, because the second he signed his contract with Milwaukee, he became the patriarch of his family. His dad always would be, in essence, but Giannis became the provider. Everything that happened to them from then on was on his shoulders. His back. His wallet.

  He wanted that responsibility. So Giannis was hesitant to spend money and thought deeply about each purchase. “He didn’t want to spend a dime,” says Knight, the Bucks guard. Once, Giannis turned on his TV, and it wouldn’t power on. He called Geiger. “My TV’s not working.” Geiger figured it out: Giannis hadn’t paid his cable bill. “My bill?” Giannis said, surprised. “How much is it?” It was only twenty dollars a month. “Oh, I’m not paying that,” Giannis said. He didn’t.

  Giannis was the only Bucks player to not set up direct deposit that season. “He insisted on a check,” Oppenheimer says. He needed to see the evidence of money in real life, feel the physical paper in his hand, in order to believe it. To trust it.

  He hesitated to let other people pay for him. When he’d go to dinner with Skip Robinson, the Bucks staffer, Giannis would say, “Are you sure? This OK? Too much?”

  Robinson would just smile, assuring him it was fine. “He was just so polite,” Robinson says.

  Robinson sent him a fancy sport coat with a collar, tailored just for him. Giannis quickly called him. “This is crazy! Skip, this is crazy.”

  “No, no, it’s not crazy,” Robinson said.

  “No. No. This is crazy. This is crazy.”

  Robinson had to convince him to keep it. When surviving had been his mentality for so long, he found it unfathomable to consider gifts or excess. When Sanders bought him a custom business suit and matching Gucci shoes, Giannis said he couldn’t accept the gift. “He didn’t want to take it,” Sanders says. “He was looking at me like I just got him a new house.” Sanders explained to him that this was the NBA; vets are supposed to take care of rookies. Besides, he had gotten the suit custom made. The tailor kept asking Sanders, “Why are his pants so damn long?”

  “Take it,” Sanders said, reassuring him, smiling. “It’s OK.” Giannis finally agreed, grateful his teammate would think enough of him to buy him a gift. Sanders knew, though, there wasn’t a chance the shoes or the suit would ever see the light of day. They were too fancy for Giannis. He wore a gray or black Bucks sweat suit every day of the year. Even on the rare occasion he would go out to dinner or a club with his teammates. They joked that he didn’t own a pair of jeans. “He didn’t care about jeans or shoes,” Sanders says. “He just wanted to play.”

  When Sanders would give Giannis his $190 per diem (compared to the $400 a month Giannis was making in Athens his final season), Giannis screamed to Geiger, “Larry gave me his envelope!” Another time, he ran up to Geiger, after completing rookie duties to buy doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts for the team. “Ross! You’re never going to believe this! Caron let me keep the change!”

  Giannis couldn’t believe that the Bucks provided tables of food before and after practice. Platters of pasta. Energy bars. Chicken. Gatorade. Chips. For free. After everyone had taken theirs, he would fill up four or five plastic containers of the food to take home. His teammates would look at him strangely, unsure why he was hoarding food.

  “Giannis,” Hackett would tell him, pulling him aside. “Don’t worry. There’s more.”

  But how could Giannis be sure? More was wishful thinking. He had always aimed for enough. One bad selling day, one mishap, could lead to not enough. He couldn’t turn off that fear of not enough.

  He tried to save every cent he earned. He had planned to hang out with Geiger for his birthday, along with Geiger’s mother, who was in town. “Giannis, I heard you just got a car,” Geiger’s mother said to him.

  “Yeah, real big car,” Giannis said, gushing with pride.

  “Well, Ross’s friends are coming; they’re all staying here for Ross’s birthday. Of course, you’re coming. Do you want to drive us?”

  Giannis lit up. “Yeah, I drive. I drive us!”

  They headed to a restaurant nearby. Geiger, sitting in the passenger seat, looked over at Giannis’s speed and saw that his gas tank was nearly empty. “Giannis,” Geiger said. “You have five miles until empty.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah… We’re not going to make it to the restaurant. We’ve gotta stop.”

  “OK, OK. I stop, I stop.”

  He pulled into a gas station, and Geiger stepped out of the car to help him. “No, no, I got this,” Giannis insisted. The car probably held about twenty gallons, but the pump stopped after twenty seconds.

  “What’s going on?” Geiger said. “There’s no way it’s full.”

  “No… but I’m out of money.”

  “What do you mean you’re out of money?” Geiger was confused—how could Giannis be out of money when he didn’t spend any money?

  “Well, I only put so much on this card for a certain period of time. The rest goes to my parents.” He hopped back in the car and reassured Geiger’s mother, “We’ll be fine! We have enough gas to get there and back! I’ll worry about it later! It’s OK!”

  Once, Giannis asked Sal Sendik, former team attendant, who later helped out the equipment team from 2011 to 2015, to go to the grocery store with him. When Sendik came to Giannis’s place to pick him up, he walked into Giannis’s room and saw him digging through a suitcase. Giannis pulled out four envelopes; they were his weekly per diem.

  “Giannis, dude, you saved all of these? Why didn’t you spend them?” Sendik asked.

  “Oh. I saved them for my family to give to them at the end of the season when they come here hopefully,” he said. “I don’t really need it.”

  There were a lot of things he didn’t think he needed. He would give away new gear if he had multiple sets of something, like socks or shirts, to the Bucks ball kids. He rarely spent anything on himself.

  Which is why he felt guilty, seeing a new PlayStation at a Best Buy one afternoon. It was nearly $400, but he wanted it. Really badly. And he could afford it. He kept staring at it, trying to decide what to do.

  You know we can’t get that.

  He was back in Athens. Back on the street. A child again. Sunglasses in hand, suppressing want. Focusing on need. Reminding his younger brothers: You know we can’t get t
hat.

  But on an impulse, he bought the PlayStation that day in Milwaukee.

  The guilt suffocated him. He chastised himself for the rash decision. How could he be so frivolous? What was happening to him? He hadn’t earned anything yet. “He felt like he was spending too much money,” Alex says.

  He returned the PlayStation the next morning.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Giannis’s sneakers were falling apart. They started to show the wear and tear of bulldozing his way to the basket. Falling down some possessions. He had been wearing one pair of sneakers the entire time, the first five months of the season.

  Yes: a single pair. A plain-Jane Nike sneaker: white with a red swoosh and red heel. Not a pair of Kobes. Not a pair of KDs. Most NBA players wear a different pair every game. Hell, every practice. They had fashion statements to make, brands to endorse. Giannis was just grateful to have a pair at all. One he didn’t have to share with Thanasis.

  That was different. That was exciting. That was also something he took deep pride in. The sweat that would soak up in the heel? His. The jagged tears down the seams? His. The worn, faded gray laces? His. So he was going to use the pair until it couldn’t be used anymore.

  Jay Namoc, the Bucks equipment manager from 2012 to 2017, gave him that first pair of Nikes and kept trying to give him new pairs, especially when Giannis started to slide on the court when the shoe began to age. Giannis might as well have been playing on a dust-ridden court, given how little grip remained on his soles.

  Namoc was worried about Giannis’s safety, so he asked Oppenheimer, who was growing closer to Giannis, to try to convince Giannis to give up the shoes. Just as Hackett had told him there would be more food, Oppenheimer insisted there would be more shoes.

  But Giannis wouldn’t budge. He didn’t want more. He wanted this pair to last forever. He became emotional when the shoes were so decrepit, so thin, that he finally accepted he could no longer use them. “He would look at those shoes with a lot of sadness,” Namoc says.