Giannis

by Mirin Fader

  The little kids watching Giannis that day were in awe. That this person, this superstar, came from here. This gym. These walls. Back when it had leaky showers, cracked windows. Back when he had to take bus after bus just to make it on time. They saw the photos of him, now framed near the entrance: skinny Giannis in his red uniform, baby-faced and unsmiling, determined.

  Kids started shooting around. One of the leaders of the event described to some kids how to Eurostep like Giannis, demonstrating the steps. Giannis came over, corrected him. “You’re explaining it badly,” Giannis said—jokingly but not so jokingly. This was his signature move; the kids needed to know how to do it right. “You’re explaining the regular Eurostep,” Giannis said, “but this is not how I do it.” Giannis took the ball, ran to the three-point line, and then showed how he zoomed to the basket in two steps, starting with a high bounce of a ball and then the Eurostep.

  Then some teenagers organized into groups of three-on-three for a tournament. Before the game, Giannis talked to them about being unique. About not being afraid to stand out. He was wearing his Nike “Freak” shirt, a nod to his Greek Freak nickname. “Guys, being a freak is not a bad thing,” Giannis said. He spoke with an air of authority but also of sincerity, of someone who understood what it was like to be called different. Called weird. Glanced at strangely, bullied.

  But the way he talked about being a freak, on this day, smiling in his warm, inviting way, made being unique sound… awesome.

  “Being a freak makes you different,” Giannis continued, “but different doesn’t mean bad. Different is good.”

  * * *

  Later that year, when the 2019–2020 season began, expectations rose even higher for the Bucks. After winning sixty games the previous season, the Bucks were expected to contend for the title. And with Kawhi Leonard joining the Clippers out west, the Eastern Conference seemed more open. The 76ers were formidable, but the Bucks were ready to compete.

  There was also more pressure to win, given that, in about a year from that point, Giannis would be eligible to sign the supermax extension. With so much movement across the league, highlighted by James moving to the Lakers the year before, there was even more speculation about whether Giannis would leave Milwaukee for a bigger-market team or stay loyal to his home base.

  Giannis didn’t say much when asked about his future. He was just happy that the Bucks had signed Thanasis to a contract in July 2019. The two were finally on the same team again. It could be seen as a move to court Giannis to stay with the franchise, but, still, with Alex being a senior at Dominican, it was a dream come true to have them in the same city again.

  “Giannis and Thanasis both play with so much intensity, so much energy,” says Marvin Williams, a forward who joined the Bucks in 2020. Williams often noticed how Thanasis, despite not playing many minutes, pushed Giannis during practice, was always in his ear. “You can tell they genuinely don’t take anything for granted. They prepare with a different attitude.”

  Giannis looked even bigger, even more chiseled, than he had the previous season. And he appeared even more dominant, dropping fifty points against the Jazz in late November. He averaged more than thirty points and thirteen rebounds in an impressive thirty minutes per game—his lowest minute total since 2013–2014, given Budenholzer’s preference to rest him.

  As incredible as he was playing, he still didn’t want people to think they needed to do things for him just because he was an MVP. The Bucks video coordinators would bring a towel to wipe up the floor after Giannis’s workouts because his sweat would drip everywhere, but Giannis would always grab the towel from them and insist that he wipe the floor himself. Giannis didn’t think he was above doing that, any more than when he was back in Sepolia, mopping the Zografou court.

  One afternoon, Giannis attended a Wisconsin Herd game, the Bucks minor-league affiliate, as Thanasis had been signed to a two-way contract with the Herd. As Giannis walked through the tunnel near the court, he saw a young man mopping the floor in the hallway.

  “Good work in there—I see you out there,” Giannis said to the young man, giving him a fist bump.

  The young man, Gout Deng, was stunned. He was an intern for the Herd and didn’t expect Giannis to be at the game, let alone say anything to him. He certainly didn’t expect Giannis to say anything to him after that. But after the game was over, Giannis was about to walk out of the arena when he paused, turned around, and looked right at Deng. Something in him was pulled toward Deng, who was still hunched over, mopping the floor. Giannis walked over.

  “What’s your name?” Giannis said.

  “Gout.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Oh, really? Well, when I was around your age, sixteen, seventeen, I used to mop the floor too.”

  “No, you’re lying—you’re kidding.” Gout laughed.

  “No, no, I’m serious. I really used to do this when I was younger. Growing up, it was tough, and I had to make money in some way by doing some sort of work, and that’s what I did. I was in your position. And when I saw you earlier, I told Thanasis that I saw myself in you, mopping that floor. Being that young kid.”

  Gout could barely speak. “I’m looking at myself like, ‘What does he see in me?’” Deng says now. “It was insane. Just amazing.” Then Giannis asked about his background.

  Deng told him that he and his family were immigrants too. Deng was born in Cairo, Egypt; his parents were originally from Sudan. The family then immigrated to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when Deng was two. He had grown up there. Deng then told Giannis that he too had four brothers. He was also close with his mother, as his dad was not around.

  The similarities between them were striking. They both saw themselves in each other. Gout saw the superhero he wanted to be, Giannis the determined young kid he used to be. Giannis asked Deng what he wanted to do with his life.

  “I’m a basketball player too,” Deng told him. He had helped his high school to a state championship and wants to play college basketball and work in the NBA one day.

  “I was where you are, and look where I am now,” Giannis told him. “It is achievable. It is attainable. As long as you put in the hard work. You can do anything you set your mind to. I believe in you.”

  Deng had never had anybody tell him that before. That he was capable, that he could accomplish what he dreamed. When he asked Giannis if he could take a picture with him, he looked around to see if there was anybody who could take one. Giannis laughed. “No, no, I want you to take the pic! Like a selfie!”

  The two smiled as Deng snapped the photo. It is a moment he thinks about often. The thought of Giannis pushes him. Makes him want to live up to those expectations. Deng has visions of one day working in the NBA, and seeing Giannis, and telling him that he did it. He achieved his dream.

  * * *

  It seemed like Giannis might be able to achieve his own dreams in 2020, given that the Bucks were looking like the best team in the NBA, on pace to win seventy games. Milwaukee went on an eighteen-game winning streak that stretched into December, ending on a loss to the Mavericks, though Giannis still scored forty-eight in that game.

  But it was against Anthony Davis, LeBron James, and the Lakers that Giannis truly made a statement. LA came to Milwaukee in late December 2019 in one of the most anticipated showdowns of the season. Both teams stood atop the league.

  One play, Davis sagged so far off Giannis that Giannis had no choice but to launch the three.

  He made it.

  As Giannis ran back on defense, he winked. The Lakers called a time-out, and Giannis did the unthinkable: he raised his hands over his head and made a circle with his fingers, placing an invisible sphere above his head. He was crowning himself king, living up to his Nigerian name, Ade.

  “I wear the crown now,” he seemed to say to the Bucks bench as he walked toward his teammates. It was an astonishing moment—and not just because James’s nickname was King James. It was that Giannis final
ly understood his power, his worth. He was letting everyone know that he was the best player in the league.

  “It finally felt like Milwaukee was truly at or past the level of a huge market juggernaut like the Lakers, which just hadn’t been the case since Kareem left—my and plenty of other fans’ whole lifetimes,” says Ti Windisch, who covers the Bucks as cohost of the Gyro Step podcast. “It wasn’t just audacious to be audacious; it really lifted up and emboldened Bucks fans to a place most of them had rarely, if ever, been—believing their team would be world champions.”

  After dominating with thirty-four points, including five threes, eleven rebounds, seven assists, a steal, and a block in just thirty-two minutes, to lead the Bucks to a win, Giannis almost seemed overwhelmed by the moment when talking to media afterward. He was taking in the magnitude of assuming a crown that was never meant for him. Never meant for somebody who comes from where he came from.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be here,” Giannis said that night. “I wasn’t the number-one pick. AD was. LeBron was. I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  Afterward, Giannis found Thanasis and Kostas, who was there now that he was a member of the Lakers’ G League team. They all posed for a picture, feeling grateful to be there, three brothers in the NBA.

  “It’s hard,” Giannis says, thinking about Alex coming up fourth, “when you see your brothers are doing good things, getting drafted. I know Alex is in a tough position seeing his three brothers getting drafted and thinking, What is going to happen to me? He wants it so bad.”

  Giannis reminds Alex that he can get there. He has the talent. And although Alex can’t see it now, Giannis reminds Alex that he too couldn’t see his own potential. Giannis had coaches point it out to him, put him in positions to succeed. “They saw the vision for me and helped me,” Giannis would often tell Alex. “So I’m going to help you see the vision for you.”

  Oftentimes Giannis would think about how Alex must be processing the attention around him. How Alex might question himself, thinking, If I’m not going to be as good as my brothers, should I just quit? And then a reassuring thought pops into Giannis’s head. That would never happen. “That’s not Alex,” Giannis says. “When something is in Alex’s mind, he will do it. He is so determined. He is so stubborn. Our whole family is determined to keep going.”

  So Giannis would remind Alex, “In one year from now, you’re going to be a completely different player. You’re going to be way better.”

  “Yeah, but how?” Alex asked.

  “Bro. Do you trust me?” Giannis said. “I’ve been there before. I’ve been in your shoes. I know what you feel. As long as you work hard, as long as you put the effort in, believe in yourself, you’re gonna be better.”

  Alex wanted success now. But he couldn’t speed up time. “Alex has this mentality of ‘OK. My brothers have done it; I have to do it too,’” Kostas says. “But Alex is better than all of us at his age.”

  His brothers told him to keep faith, and now that Thanasis was in Milwaukee too, he was receiving in-game advice from both older brothers. Giannis and Thanasis would pull Alex aside at halftime of Alex’s games, speak to him in Greek about what he needed to improve on. “When you’re young, you don’t know; you’ve never worked in your life,” Giannis says. “I’m prepping Alex to be a pro, same thing I did with Kostas. Kostas didn’t know what being a pro was until he went to the G League. It’s making sure you have your fruit, your water, taking care of your body. I didn’t know that my first year, my second year.”

  Like Giannis, Alex is known for his uncanny athleticism and versatility. He handles the ball like a guard and loves shooting the three, his skill set “so far ahead of everyone else as far as overall talent,” says Jim Gosz, Alex’s coach at Dominican High School, “[showing] signs of greatness at times.”

  When he wanted to. When he wasn’t questioning himself. Or the plan. It was complicated. Alex wanted to be his own man. Alex wanted to be a combination of his brothers. The dream was his. The dream was theirs. “My end goal is not to be better than Giannis,” Alex says. “My end goal is to be the best version of my own self. I just happen to think that the best version of my own self could possibly surpass what my brother’s doing right now, which—I don’t even think that’s the best version of him.”

  So Alex stayed in the gym. Hardly took breaks. “I have to tell him, ‘Alex, come home. Come and eat,’” Veronica says. But he didn’t want to. He wanted to play with Giannis. When he wasn’t with Giannis, Alex was in the family’s basement. His spot. Where he went to think. To play video games. To stare at the handful of framed jerseys from his older brothers, wondering when he will earn a spot on the cream-colored walls.

  There’s Thanasis’s Greek All-Star Game jersey and Kostas’s Mavericks jersey. There’s Giannis’s NBA All-Star Game jerseys; the jersey he wore when torching the 76ers for fifty-two in March; and his first-ever Greek national team jersey, blue and white, which Giannis had all his brothers sign. Giannis might not own a more meaningful jersey, even though the adjacent wall showcases signed jerseys from some of his friends: Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, and Vince Carter.

  Alex didn’t feel worthy of pinning his high school jersey on the wall; he was waiting for his NBA jersey. He points to a block of blank space. “That’s the spot for me.”

  He felt certain he would be on that wall.

  He felt uncertain he would be on that wall.

  “I second-guess myself a lot,” Alex says.

  That is to say, he was a normal seventeen-year-old kid.

  But he was not a normal seventeen-year-old kid.

  Giannis would remind him he had a ways to go. That if Alex trusted him, believed in him, he’d be able to accomplish what Giannis had. Giannis was just always there. Thanasis and Kostas were always there too, but Alex and Giannis had a unique bond. Not just because the way they play was similar but because the way they thought was similar. Giannis was more outspoken, and Alex was shier, but when they stepped on the court, they believed they were the most dominant.

  Giannis was often talked about as if he was genetically invincible. A freak. But people missed his mind. The fuel he finds late in fourth quarters has nothing to do with his vertical jump. His wingspan. That’s why he was trying to teach Alex to not get in his own head. Maybe this isn’t for me, Alex sometimes thought. He’d felt pressure, though he said he didn’t believe in pressure.

  “I couldn’t imagine going through what he has to go through,” says Magee, Alex’s teammate and close friend. “With all the outside noise, he can’t really be himself. Like, he is himself, but he can’t be himself without somebody trying to compare him to Giannis.

  “He’s just a kid.”

  But he was no longer a kid. After the brothers lost their father, time kept speeding up, kept rewinding. Both Alex and Giannis kept repeating their father’s sayings, as if to keep his memory alive. His legacy.

  Alex didn’t have time to fear not meeting expectations. Not reaching the heights Giannis has. So he kept pushing. He kept saying “When I get drafted” rather than “If I get drafted.”

  Sometimes, he was less sure. He spent so much time with Giannis, out at games, living an adult life, state to state, country to country, that he had less time to focus on school. His grades suffered. So low that he might not have qualified for a Division I scholarship, which is why he only had two college offers at the time.

  Giannis always checked on Alex with Gosz, Dominican’s coach, bringing up concerns: Alex has been late to school. We need to get Alex back on path. Alex has two big games—has he done his homework? The red carpet had been laid out for Alex in ways it hadn’t for Giannis. Alex received a lot of attention on the road, as first, second, third graders, all wearing his and Giannis’s jerseys, waited for his autograph. It was as if he had already made it. Already was where Giannis is. It seemed overseas might be the best choice, then aim for the NBA.

  He struggled at a tournament in South Dakota. He felt like he’d playe
d the three worst games of his career. “First thing I had to do was call my brother,” Alex says.

  “Yeah, I’m not playing too good. I don’t know if this is for me,” Alex said.

  “Are you playing hard?” Giannis asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you giving it all you have?”

  “Yeah. I’m just not playing good.”

  “How so? If you’re playing hard, and you’re doing everything you possibly think you can, then you’re playing great. Your shots aren’t always going to fall, but you can play hard and be a leader. That’s all you can make sure you do every game. You can go one hundred percent every game.”

  Giannis hung up. The call had lasted a minute. Giannis was frugal with his words. He gave Alex just enough to chew on. Just enough to let him figure things out for himself. That’s the only way Alex was going to grow up, into his own man: he had to decide if he was willing to give everything to make it.

  * * *

  Just as the Bucks were playing the best basketball of the season, they were stopped cold by grief. Kobe Bryant; his thirteen-year-old daughter, Gigi; and seven of Gigi’s teammates and their family members and coaches had died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, a tragedy of unspeakable magnitude.

  Giannis had watched Kobe since he was a child. Worn his sneakers, emulated his dunks. His first NBA triple-double came against Kobe. His notebooks are filled with advice from Kobe. It was Kobe who challenged him to win MVP.

  Giannis was so hurt, so broken by the news. He temporarily deleted his Instagram and Twitter accounts. He didn’t know what to say when reporters asked how Kobe’s death affected him. He held back tears. “Everybody deals with tragedy in their own way,” he said. He wanted to keep his pain private, much like he had when his father died.

  He thought about all the things he’d learned from Kobe: how to work hard, how to be fearless, how to not care what people say, how to do your job and have a smile on your face, how to sacrifice family time for this game.