by Mirin Fader
But what Milwaukeeans really admire is that it didn’t happen overnight. Many of the league’s young superstars are identified as eighth graders, on the fast track to millions. Zion Williamson, the number 1 pick after that season, had been destined for superstardom since he was a teen. But Giannis’s path was different. He had to watch the bench-press bar tremble in his grip rookie year, not get discouraged that he was so far behind. He had to spend hour after hour in the weight room with Bucks strength coach Suki Hobson, transforming from someone that couldn’t do a single chin-up into someone that could bulldoze through three defenders whenever he chose.
And that resonated with some Milwaukeeans who maybe wake up in the morning and go to a job that isn’t glamorous but work hard at it. Milwaukee is a proud city. And when people there saw a person like Giannis, who worked from the ground up, they were proud. He was no longer the frail eighteen-year-old just grateful to be in the NBA, enamored by smoothies and buffets and Kevin Durant. He was no longer the overly emotional twenty-year-old who didn’t know how to channel his fire during his first playoff series against the Bulls.
Giannis was growing into a man.
“We feel like we’ve grown up with him,” says Raj Shukla, a longtime Bucks fan. “That really means something.”
Even people who don’t know much about basketball identify with him. With his personality. How humble he is, how funny he is. They like him as much as they like the basketball player. “There’s a level of redemption for Bucks fans,” says Dan Shafer, who had covered the arena debate. “You watched all these terrible Bucks teams, and instead of abandoning them, you stuck with them. And you ended up with the most fun, most likable megastar to carry us out of the darkness.”
“There’s this Shawshank moment,” Shafer continues, “where he crawled through the river of shit and smelled like roses at the end of it.”
It was exciting but terrifying, the way things were changing in Milwaukee, heading into the playoffs full of expectations. They weren’t used to that: being expected to win something. At least, they hadn’t been for a long time. The city that had been characterized as Not a Basketball City since the team’s inception had to constantly prove it was worthy of even having a team.
There was still a sense of self-doubt among some fans, almost as a defense mechanism to protect against future disappointment. They’d been burned before. “It was scary when the Bucks became good again,” says Andy Carpenter, a longtime Bucks fan. “There was still a fear that ‘The Bucks are gonna blow this because that’s just what the Bucks do.’”
* * *
The Bucks made quick work of the Pistons in round 1 of the 2018–2019 playoffs. Giannis was aggressive starting in game 1, when he made an and-one layup over Bruce Brown. Giannis pounded his chest and screamed, “I’m fucking unstoppable!”
After a 4–0 sweep, the Bucks advanced to the second round for the first time since 2001.
The Celtics proved to be a much tougher opponent. Boston threw body after body at Giannis, especially Al Horford. Whenever Giannis spun, someone was in his way. When he tried to spin the other way, someone else was in his way. The game 1 loss, 112–90, stung. Giannis was the last one dressed, lingering alone at his locker, feet in an ice-bath bucket.
He was baffled. Truly baffled. He couldn’t knock down jumpers, and he couldn’t find a rhythm to the hoop. He looked powerless. Thanasis called him afterward. “You need to play harder,” Thanasis told him. “You have to be the aggressor. You have to make the right pass.” It hurt, hearing that from his big brother.
The Bucks didn’t panic, but Giannis was more vocal than usual. He let the team know: “We can’t lose this next game. This is a must-win for us.” Giannis rebounded triumphantly, dropping twenty-nine and ten to tie the series. The Bucks won the next three games, finishing off the series with a 116–91 win. Something Giannis had said before the final game struck a chord with the team. “A lot of us probably come from nothing,” he said. “And we have the opportunity to write our own story now.”
It was miraculous, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals, facing the Raptors, and winning the first two games. Giannis started the second game with a vicious dunk and then a critical block on Marc Gasol. The Bucks legitimately looked like they could win the championship.
Alex had never seen his big brother focus that intensely. “You’d see him, and it was almost like he wasn’t a person,” Alex says. “From the time he woke up on the game days, to the time the game was over with, he had this blank look on his face like, ‘I’m about to go kill.’”
But the Raptors stole the momentum, winning game 3 in double overtime. Kawhi Leonard was phenomenal, defending Giannis, limiting him to difficult shots and causing him to make poor decisions. Giannis fought through double and triple teams, unable to find his touch.
The Raptors torched the Bucks in game 4. Giannis looked exhausted, taking hard fouls, trying to finish through contact. The Raptors knew how to draw him out of the paint and force him into his weakness. At one point, Giannis even airballed a free throw.
He continued to push, but the Bucks crumbled in clutch situations. They had led for over thirty-five minutes of game 5 but had a fourth-quarter meltdown and lost. They had led once again for much of game 6 before losing again, and ultimately losing the series in six after a 26–3 Toronto run in the final game. Worse, Giannis didn’t play nearly as many minutes as he could have, which led many to think that Budenholzer underutilized him—a far cry from how Kidd would run Giannis so ragged it looked like Giannis wouldn’t be able to stand up without help. It would be one of the many times fans and media would criticize and question Budenholzer’s seemingly odd coaching decisions.
Losing the series was devastating. Mind-boggling. To come that far, to have squandered a 2–0 lead and come up empty-handed. It became glaringly clear to Giannis how different the regular season and the playoffs were. How best records didn’t mean much if one fell apart in the postseason.
“I think it’s just the start of a long journey,” Giannis said after the game. “We’re going to get better. We’re going to come back next year and believe in who we are, believe in what we’ve built this year.”
Some players shed tears in the locker room. Many were in shock. “Giannis wanted it so bad,” Frazier says. “It was a learning experience for him. Being a leader, everybody is looking at you.”
“I know Giannis put a lot of it on himself.”
* * *
Giannis didn’t sleep for two days. He lay in bed at night, wide awake, thinking. Hurting. It was the kind of hurt that lingers. Nothing can be done about it. It would leave when it was ready to leave.
2–0.
It’s hard to move on from something like that. You think you have something, and then it slips away. You let it slip away. A sixty-win season. You want to be proud for having come that far, but coming far doesn’t get you farther.
Always want more, but never be greedy.
Giannis missed his father, his sayings. A lot. Charles would have been really proud of him. Would know exactly what to say in this moment.
Giannis tried to walk around the city that Sunday. He was touched by how many people he saw wearing Bucks gear two days after the loss. How things had changed. Back when Milwaukee sports shops carried mostly Chicago Bulls gear, very little Bucks gear. Back when some people were embarrassed to even say out loud they were Bucks fans.
Some people walking by saw him that day. Smiled. Didn’t interrupt his walk, his peace. That he can do that, in this city, is still comforting for him.
His mind drifted. What could I have done better? What do I need to change? He started thinking about the summer ahead, the things he was going to work on. How much better he needed to be to make sure he never felt this way again.
CHAPTER 14
MVP
Kostas and Thanasis flew to Milwaukee to stay with Giannis and Alex the week before the NBA Awards, which was to be held in Los Angeles. Giannis’s brothers wanted
to be there in case Giannis won MVP. On the day of the ceremony, in late June 2019, Giannis, his brothers, and Veronica took a private jet to LA.
Alex kept peppering Giannis with questions on the plane: “What if you win?” The brothers started talking about winning a championship next season too. It still hurt, coming that close. But on this morning, they were just excited for what was ahead that night.
An Escalade greeted them when they arrived. When Giannis wasn’t looking, Alex and Kostas whispered to Saratsis, one of his agents, also in the car, about the MVP: “Come on, bro—tell us if he’s going to win or not!” Saratsis wouldn’t budge. He genuinely didn’t know, and he didn’t want to predict a win and then end up disappointed. Alex insisted: “Bro, just tell us right now. Does he win or not?”
“I don’t know,” Saratsis said. “We’re just going to have to wait and see. Have faith.”
They arrived at the ceremony dressed in striking colors: Giannis in a dark navy suit with a depiction of the Parthenon on the inside lining, his way of honoring Greece; Thanasis in a bright orange suit; Kostas in a light pink suit; Alex in a dark purple suit; Mariah in an elegant black strapless dress; and Veronica in a gorgeous ruby pantsuit with a gold-plated necklace. Veronica did her own makeup, her own hair. She always has. It made sense to her to make sure she put together her entire outfit herself on such a momentous occasion.
They could feel Charles there.
When the ceremony began, Giannis whispered to his brothers, “Aye! If I win, I want you guys to come up with me.”
Alex was floored. His gut reaction was no. “We didn’t think we could handle it. I knew I would bust out crying,” Alex says. Alex kept quiet, but Kostas was a bit more assertive. “No,” Kostas said. “We can’t go up with you, bro.”
Alex started to reconsider. “Maybe we should go?”
Thanasis, being the oldest, made a decision. He looked at Giannis. “It’s your moment, bro,” Thanasis said. “You go by yourself.”
“Thanasis was too emotional to even talk to,” Alex says.
They all were. But after Thanasis said his piece, Kostas and Alex realized that Thanasis was right, of course. Giannis should go up alone. “This is the moment he’s going to remember for the rest of his life, and we wanted it to be his moment,” Alex says. “We were with him, but it’s stuff he was going through where nobody was with him, and he was by himself, so we wanted him to be by himself when we went up there.”
Giannis vowed that if he won, he wasn’t going to cry. His brothers couldn’t promise the same.
They waited and waited. And then the moment finally came. Adam Silver announced Giannis as the 2019 MVP.
Giannis, the one who, when drafted, some analysts had pondered whether he should play in the development league or in Europe for a few years. Giannis, the one who once said he’d do anything in his power to prove to Milwaukee that he was a worthy pick, a worthy person.
He was the first Buck to win MVP since Abdul-Jabbar in 1973–1974. Silver handed him the MVP trophy, and Giannis took a few breaths, stared at the award he held in his hands, the sheer weight of it making the surreal moment feel real.
“Oh man,” Giannis said, looking at the floor. “Man, I’m nervous. OK.”
He took a deep breath. “So, first of all, I want to thank God. For blessing me with this amazing talent—I wouldn’t be in this position I am today.” He paused, trying to compose himself. “Hold on.” He took a step back. “OK, OK.” Sensing that he was overcome with emotion, the audience cheered.
And then Giannis started to wipe his eyes, tried to prevent himself from letting a tear resting in the corner of his eye fall. “I want to thank God for putting me in this amazing position I am today. Everything I do, I do it through him. I’m extremely blessed, and I realize that, and so I thank God.” He kept looking at the floor, shaking his head, the magnitude of what was happening seeping into his body.
“I want to thank my teammates. It takes more than one person to win sixty games,” he said. He thanked his coaches for pushing the team, believing in them. “I want to thank the front office, the ownership, for believing in me when I was eighteen years old,” he said, finally breaking down. “When I was back in Greece.” He could no longer try to speak through his tears. He covered his face one last time before they streamed down his cheeks.
Hearing his name, realizing the years of hard work he had given, the sacrifices his parents had made for him, for his brothers, he felt all of it rush through him.
He thanked the city of Milwaukee; he thanked Greece; he thanked Nigeria. All these places that have made him, him. He recalled childhood days of waking up at 5:00 a.m. to watch the NBA when it came on in Sepolia.
“I want to thank my dad. Obviously my dad is not here with me, but…” His voice trailed off. Veronica clapped. It was impossible to not feel his pain. How far he had come: a little boy sleeping in the corner of a run-down gym, determined to become somebody. “Two years ago, I had the goal in my head that I know I’m going to be the best player in the league. I’m going to do whatever it takes to help my team win, and I’m going to win the MVP. Every day that I step on the floor, I always think about my dad—and that motivates me and pushes me to play harder and move forward even when my body is sore. Even when I don’t feel like playing.
“I want to thank my amazing brothers, you know—I love you guys, man,” he said, patting his chest, his heart, through tears. Kostas and Alex covered their eyes, put their heads down, as they too cried.
“You guys are my ride-or-die. You guys are my role models, man. I look up to you guys. Thank you for everything you guys do. And I want to thank my amazing mom. She’s my hero.” Veronica wiped a stray tear on her cheek. “When you’re a little kid, you don’t see the future, right? Your parent sees the future for you,” Giannis continued. “She always saw the future in us; she always believed in us; she was always there for us; she is the foundation of this family. You are my true hero.
“At the end of the day, this is just the beginning. My goal is to win a championship,” he said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to make that happen.” He took one last look at his brothers before leaving the stage.
Alex always knew his big brother was great—but now the entire world knew. “I’m lost for words,” Alex says. “Knowing that’s your brother, somebody you live in the same house with, someone you work out with, is the greatest player in the world’s greatest basketball league.” He pauses. “It’s unbelievable.”
Kostas had never wanted to emulate Giannis more than in that moment. “When he won MVP, it was like we all won MVP,” Kostas says. “We’re really grateful for what God has given us.” As he watched Giannis on stage, Kostas thought of all the times Giannis sweat through his shirt, his shorts, during ball-handling drills. All the times he and Alex were there, getting Giannis’s rebounds, tossing pass after pass to him, hoping each one was perfect, had enough oomph.
“You just feel like when your brother accomplishes his goal, it’s your own goal too,” Kostas says.
Giannis has always wanted to make it for his brothers. He has always wanted to be able to provide for them. He has always wanted to be a decent man for them.
* * *
Three days later, they were all back in Greece for the launch of Giannis’s first signature shoe, the Nike Zoom Freak 1, set to debut the following month. Giannis became the first international player to have his own Nike signature shoe at just twenty-four.
It was unfathomable, having his own Nike signature shoe, something that didn’t seem possible to Giannis growing up in Sepolia, when he was just grateful to be sharing one pair with Thanasis.
Even his rookie season in America, back in 2013, when the Bucks kept handing him shoes, he felt so uncomfortable receiving them—like one person should never be able to have that many when so many people don’t have any.
Launching the Nike Zoom Freak in Greece was a way to honor his homeland and family. The Freak 1 titled “All Bros,” a nav
y-and-orange version, had “I Am My Father’s Legacy” etched on the sole. The names of Giannis’s parents, Veronica and Charles, plus his brothers, Thanasis, Kostas, Alex, and Francis, were also inscribed. Giannis’s logo—GA—plus number 34 and an image of the Greek flag were also displayed on the heel. Another version of the sneaker, “Roses,” came in red, white, and gold, Charles’s three favorite colors.
Giannis gushed to reporters that the shoe really wasn’t just his shoe; it belonged to all his brothers. They helped him design it. He asked Veronica for her input, too, especially with choosing colors: her favorite color combination is black and white.
“This is our shoe,” Giannis kept repeating to reporters, introducing the shoe.
Hundreds of locals came to see him, his family, the sneaker, as it was unveiled in the columned atrium of Athens’s Zappeion. The prestigious Zappeion was the host of a fencing competition in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
Many of Giannis’s former Greek national-team teammates came to support him, including Nikos Zisis. “It was amazing,” Zisis says. Zisis and his own sons now wear Giannis’s sneakers. “I’m really proud of him.”
Every time Giannis was asked about winning MVP on the trip, he downplayed it. Reinforced that he was the same guy. “I’ll always remember my roots. I remember where I’m from,” he told reporters that day. “MVP is great, but I will not change.”
He’d often get upset when Mariah or anyone else in his family told him how good he was, how he was one of the world’s best. “No I’m not,” he’d say, not wanting to relax. Not even for a second. He told reporters he felt he had reached only 60 percent of his potential and asked them not to call him MVP anymore.
Fans visited the Filathlitikos gym as part of the sneaker-release festivities. Behind one basket, a white Nike banner featured a picture of Giannis dunking, surrounded by the words “Fate can start you at the bottom. Dreams can take you to the top.” Zografou’s mayor, Vassilis Thodas, went to the front of the gym to announce that the gym name was being changed to AntetokounBros to honor Giannis and his brothers.