by Mirin Fader
He first thought that playing basketball that day, after Kobe’s death, would help him feel better, much like it had when he went to the gym after Charles’s death. But he was still crushed. He slowly opened up to reporters that day. “At the end of the day,” Giannis said, “you think to yourself, Is this worth it? Playing basketball for twenty years and then being gone. Is actually going through all this pressure, all this media, all this, is this actually worth it?
“For me,” he said, “it’s definitely worth it.”
But the thoughts lingered. It did with his brothers too, as they knew how much Kobe meant to Giannis. “I thought, Kobe? Literally Kobe?” Alex says. “Nothing’s going to happen to Kobe.” It reminded Alex of one of Thanasis’s sayings: “Nobody is untouchable.”
Kobe’s death reminded Kostas to be more appreciative. “You can’t take life for granted,” Kostas says. “Every time you come out here, you get an opportunity. You have to give it everything you’ve got.”
Thanasis took that to heart as the season wore on. He was mostly coming in at cleanup time, after the Bucks had a big lead. But he hustled hard, as if they were the most important few minutes of his life. They were. He had worked hard to be respected in his own right, through disappointment after disappointment, going back overseas when Giannis was succeeding in America. And now that they could do it together? That was something nobody could take away from them.
“Everything I went through, I’m so happy,” Thanasis says. “The thing is, it’s not how much you work. It’s not work hard, work hard. The key is actually patience. I been learning that. My dad made me like that: be patient, because you can grow into so much, persevering through these hardships.”
Giannis and Thanasis started in the same game against the Nuggets in February 2020. It was special for both of them but reminded Thanasis of the first time Veronica and Charles had come to watch them play, back when they were kids. “Just seeing them cheer for us.” Thanasis breaks into a giant smile, making sure to add, “And we won.”
A few weeks later, Thanasis, Giannis, and Kostas all attended Alex’s game at Dominican. It was senior night, and for the first time, all of them watched Alex play at the same time (Kostas had flown in from LA and surprised them).
Alex kept looking over to his brothers in the stands, all wearing black hooded sweatshirts with “Antetokounmpo 34” on the back in white letters. They carried green-and-white balloons, Dominican’s colors. Veronica, in a black hat, was also there, in her customary spot: top left corner.
Alex wanted to put on a show for them. He showed a little bit of swagger in layup lines, but not too much, in the way younger brothers do when they are trying to impress their big brothers. “You could just see the glow in Alex,” Gosz says. Before the game, Alex’s brothers handed him flowers and balloons.
The game started, and Alex looked dominant. He rebounded the ball, went coast-to-coast, muscled his way to the basket for a quick layup. Giannis stood up, clapped. The brothers got even more vocal as the game went on, screaming in Greek, especially Thanasis: “Get back on D!” Giannis screamed out, “Screen, screen!” in Greek, warning Alex of the coming pick—as if he wanted to jump out of the stands and protect his baby brother from getting clocked.
When Alex made an and-one putback, screaming with the mean-mug face he’d seen Giannis do so many times, Giannis leaped out of his seat and was so impressed he walked down to the bottom, near the court, and screamed, “Let’s gooooo!”
“My brothers all told me they were proud of me,” Alex says. “They said I handled the pressure as good as anybody. That meant a lot coming from them.”
When Alex reflects on that moment, he ranks it alongside other life moments that happened that year. “Giannis winning MVP, senior night, and my nephew being born—those are the best moments of my life.”
Yes, his nephew—Giannis’s first son—was born earlier that month. Giannis announced that Mariah gave birth to Liam Charles Antetokounmpo on February 10, 2020.
Giannis was so happy now that he was a father. He’s always wanted a son. And that son came at the right time in his life. Still grieving his father, Giannis was ready to have a family of his own.
And his son is just like him. He already has sparks of personality. “He’s got the best qualities from his mom and dad,” Alex says. Then he laughs, thinking of how many adult mannerisms Liam already has. “He’s like a grown person in a tiny-person body. He brings that same sparkle, that same energy, that a grown person would bring. That same positive energy.”
The brothers wonder if Liam will play basketball. A lot of people ask them about it: Will they be upset if Liam doesn’t like basketball? “Our love for each other was there way before basketball even came in the picture,” Alex says. “We don’t know what he wants to pursue. He might grow up and say, ‘I want to do what my father and uncles do.’ Or he might grow up and say, ‘I have something different I’m interested in.’ At the end of the day, whatever he chooses, we’re going to support him fully.”
DeVon Jackson, Dominican’s assistant coach, remembers a conversation with Giannis about parenthood and basketball, as Jackson’s son had just begun playing hoops. Giannis had asked Jackson how into basketball Jackson’s son was, how he reacted when he first started going to practice.
“Whatever you do,” Giannis told Jackson, “you give him a basketball, but don’t do anything else after that. Don’t try to coach him. That’s what my dad did to me: he gave me a basketball, but he didn’t try to teach me. He didn’t put me in camps. I just started to love it on my own.”
CHAPTER 15
HOME
A couple of hours before tip-off against the Thunder, a game in late February 2020, Giannis walked out to the court and began shooting close near the basket. He was the first out, as usual.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in town for the game, later showed up courtside. Milwaukee fans greeted him with warm applause. He smiled, settling into his seat.
Looking at both men, here at Fiserv Forum, was eerie. In a matter of months, Giannis would be forced to decide whether to stay and sign the supermax extension or leave Milwaukee.
Leave like Abdul-Jabbar did.
The two men couldn’t be more different, not just in terms of playing style but in terms of demeanor. Abdul-Jabbar kept his distance from fans. Wanted to be in a bigger city. Wanted the bright lights. Giannis was more gregarious and warm to fans and didn’t seem to see the allure of living in a bigger city. He liked the quiet, the peace, of Milwaukee.
As different as they are, they represent something very similar to this city: hope. Some Bucks fans haven’t allowed themselves to hope, to fully love their hero without fearing him leaving.
“We’re still waiting for that championship after fifty years,” says Dan Schnoll, a fifty-two-year-old Milwaukee native and lifelong fan whose family had season tickets in the 1970s and 1980s. “We’ve just never been able to get over that hump.”
It is the Milwaukee mentality to have hopeful worry but to believe anyway, failed draft after failed draft. To love anyway, earning eighth seed after eighth seed. But to watch Giannis, at a time when the Bucks were once again on track for the NBA’s best regular-season record, was to realize how far Milwaukee has come and to maybe even lean into the tantalizing possibility that history might not repeat itself. That the hero might stay.
* * *
Ashok Hermon, a Bucks guest-service attendant, hovered over a rail near the press section as the Thunder ran out onto the court. “Giannis means everything to us,” Hermon said. “I’m hoping, keeping my fingers crossed, that he sticks around.” It made him nervous, not knowing what would happen: “I can’t control it. I can’t do anything about it.”
A couple of rows down and to the middle sat Kelvin and Sharonda Robinson. They’ve been watching the Bucks all their lives. “I kind of get the impression that he’s not a person that would just leave us hanging,” Kelvin said. Sharonda was a little more measured. She wasn’t as sure. She chose
to focus on gratitude. “I’m appreciative that he’s here,” she said, as if contemplating what could happen is too stressful to acknowledge. “I’m appreciative of his journey.”
Matthew Smith, a fan standing with his kids near the far end of the court, opened up about his concerns. “I’m worried he’s going to leave,” Smith said. “Hopefully ownership has enough pieces around him to keep him here and pay him all the money he’s worth. Because what he’s worth is more than a financial impact. It’s worth all these kids here having an idol to look up to.”
Andy Carpenter, a longtime fan, steeled himself for the worst. “I want the best for Giannis, like a child, like, he might love someone else—but I just want him to be happy,” Carpenter said. “He deserves everything and then some. I was prepared for, you know.” He paused. “I would still root for the Bucks.”
But for this night, Bucks fans could lose themselves in the joy. The fun. They watched Giannis zoom up and down the court, dunking with ease. They watched Thanasis come off the bench, score on a driving layup off a screen.
One section sang Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend” at the top of their lungs, “Oh, baby, you, you got what I neeeed!” during a timeout when the game was well in hand, the Bucks up by thirty. They swayed side to side, smiling, laughing. Dreaming.
* * *
And then, suddenly, the dream was interrupted. Paused. The world shut down as the COVID-19 pandemic infected millions throughout the world. The NBA shut down the season about two weeks after that Thunder game, when Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive on March 11.
Giannis gave $100,000 to Fiserv Forum staff to help workers stay afloat. He spent quarantine playing with baby Liam, taking up guitar. He found ways to shoot around and do home workouts, but it wasn’t the same.
He felt lost without basketball. Without the momentum of the season. The Bucks had looked like a championship contender, but with the future of the season uncertain, none of it really mattered anymore.
Police killed George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old Black man, in May 2020, as well as Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six-year-old Black woman, who’d been sleeping in her home when she was murdered in March 2020. The killings sparked worldwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
Giannis and several Bucks teammates, including Thanasis, Sterling Brown, Donte DiVincenzo, Brook Lopez, and Frank Mason III, as well as Mariah and Liam, joined the protests in Milwaukee. They wore “I can’t breathe” shirts, referencing Eric Garner, another Black man killed by police.
Giannis brought water and snacks for protesters, telling the crowd, “This is our city, man. We want change. We want justice.”
“This is for unity,” Giannis said. “I want my kid to grow up here in Milwaukee and not be scared to walk in the street. I want the city of Milwaukee to know I’m here.”
And later, in early 2021, Giannis was even more explicit: “My kid is going to grow up here in America, and my kid is Black. I cannot imagine my kid going through what I see on TV.”
“For a person like Giannis to just say, ‘This is how close this is to me; what’s happening with racial injustice in this country impacts me too,’ it creates this sense of connection to so many other people who also have that experience and also have that fear,” says Francesca Hong, representative of the Seventy-Sixth District of the Wisconsin State Assembly, who is a big Bucks fan. “He’s taking what is a collective fear and helping to transform it into something good with the hope that he brings to this city.
“Those types of words resonate with more people than I think even he realizes,” Hong says.
Former NBA player turned broadcaster Chris Webber and Clippers coach Doc Rivers poured their hearts out on camera, describing what it was like to be Black in America. To be constantly surveilled, mistreated, disenfranchised, killed by police. “We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot. We’re the ones, that we’re denied to live in certain communities,” Rivers said. “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. It’s just, it’s really so sad.”
The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II wrote, “The very athletes we typically shroud with affection, with all their wealth and fame, can’t shake the rage either. To not listen, to not watch, to turn away, is essentially affirming the very foundational ideology that produces the rage. It is all born of the frustration and anger of being human yet not being fully recognized for that.”
Players debated whether or not they should continue the season, in order to focus their efforts toward protesting police brutality and advocating for racial justice full-time, especially given that they were performing for a largely white audience who didn’t face the same violence at the hands of the state that they did.
“Why help the most comfortable Americans lull themselves more ardently to sleep?” wrote Vinson Cunningham of the New Yorker. “Why act like life was normal when it wasn’t?”
Shortly after Giannis’s comments at the protests, a mural of him back home, in Athens, was desecrated with swastikas. Greece had changed in some ways but hadn’t much changed in others. Golden Dawn was found guilty of running a criminal organization in the ongoing trial that culminated in October 2020. It had lasted more than five years, with 69 defendants—and 120 witnesses for the prosecution. It was a historic result, but Neo-Nazism was still alive and well. New groups have formed, such as the Greek Solution.
About 16,500 asylum seekers were stuck on Greece’s Aegean Islands, living in squalor, prompting Human Rights Watch to call it a “forgotten emergency.” Migrants waited months, years, for papers, for salvation. To make matters worse, the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, helped hide Greece’s illegal practice of pushing back migrants to Turkey, helping to cover up the violations. Then, in November 2020, Moria, Europe’s largest refugee camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos, was set on fire by an angry group of its inhabitants, leaving 12,600 people homeless. Stranded.
* * *
The NBA returned in late July, with teams stationed in a “bubble” near Orlando at Disney World. It was strange, not having fans in the stands, living so close to competitors. That was something Giannis wasn’t used to. He said it would be the toughest championship one could ever win because of the difficult circumstances.
He did his best to work out, to stay in shape, but it was taxing not having the same routine. Still, he refused to complain about how small his living quarters were, remembering how his apartments growing up in Greece had been so much smaller.
But as playoffs began, the Bucks struggled against the Magic in the opening round, dropping game 1. They came back to win the next two games, taking a commanding 3–1 lead, but their attention soon shifted.
Police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man from Kenosha, Wisconsin, about forty miles from Milwaukee, in the back seven times in front of Blake’s children. Led by veteran George Hill, the Bucks refused to emerge from the locker room to face the Magic in game 5.
Milwaukee’s wildcat strike was a watershed moment in NBA players’ protests against police brutality. It inspired other teams to contemplate their own forms of protest. The Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, the Lakers and the Blazers, didn’t play either. WNBA players, long at the forefront of the fight for racial justice, wore white T-shirts with Blake’s name on the front and seven bullet holes on the back, the number of times Blake had been shot. That led to protests in Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer and on the Women’s Tennis Association circuit, led by Naomi Osaka.
ESPN’s Howard Bryant eloquently wrote that Black men and women athletes “do not exist solely for the entertainment of the public, especially a white public that often seems to thrive on diminishing Black pain. As a job, yes, the players provide entertainment. As people, no.
“The accumulation of what is happening to Black people in this country is real, coming at a real cost,” Bryant continued. “The pain is real. The responsibility is real.”
Eventually, Milwauk
ee decided to play, finishing off the Magic before heading into round 2 against Miami. Jimmy Butler seemed unstoppable. The Heat defense swarmed Giannis, forcing him to become a jump shooter, exposing his shaky form, his lack of confidence in his jumper, his poor free throw percentages.
After losing the first two games, the Bucks took another fall, dropping game 3 as Giannis tweaked his ankle after going up for a dunk. He kept playing through the pain, but he played only thirty-five minutes. Reporters were vocal about Budenholzer’s substitutions, questioning why he wouldn’t play his star more. Giannis merely told reporters with a shrug after the game, “Yeah, I could play more.”
He missed most of game 4 with the ankle injury, scoring nineteen before watching the rest from the locker room. His teammates kept the season alive by winning in overtime, but Giannis didn’t play in game 5, and the Bucks were eliminated. It was brutally disappointing, especially for a franchise that yet again played so well during the regular season, only to crumble come playoffs.
Giannis, just twenty-five, won Defensive Player of the Year—and his second consecutive MVP award, joining the distinguished roster of Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Abdul-Jabbar as players who have repeated MVP in back-to-back seasons.
Tzikas, the Kivotos Café owner, called Giannis to congratulate him. “It was such a special moment,” Tzikas says. But Tzikas knew Giannis was still in pain from losing, from the way the Bucks had wildly underperformed. The way his own weaknesses were on full display. And it thrust his supermax decision back to the center of national conversation. Giannis told reporters after the game that, as long as everyone was fighting for the same goal, to become a champion, he didn’t see why he couldn’t be in Milwaukee for the next fifteen years.