Giannis and Khris Middleton share a bond that has shaped the Milwaukee Bucks
By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer
It was not a time when you would expect to see a team’s star erupt in anger. Non-playoff game, not even halfway through the first quarter, postseason seeding — in this case the top spot in the Eastern Conference — basically secured.
But still, there was Giannis Antetokounmpo, hopping up and down, furious with teammate George Hill. This was three games into last season’s mid-pandemic restart. Antetokounmpo had drawn the lead-footed Miami Heat center Kelly Olynyk on a cross-matchup in transition, an easy matchup for him to exploit. He furiously waved his arms, demanding the ball.
Maybe Hill didn’t see him. Maybe he saw something else. Hill held the ball for a moment before initiating a pick-and-roll. Antetokounmpo, who had been standing above the 3-point line, lost his composure, cocking his right fist and forearm to punch the air before catching himself.
Watching all this unfold from the sideline, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer called timeout. Antetokounmpo, according to people familiar with the interaction, grew even more animated in the huddle and unloaded on Hill for not recognizing the mismatch.
A teammate then came over to pull Antetokounmpo aside. It was Khris Middleton, Antetokounmpo’s fellow All-Star and longtime running mate. Middleton calmed Antetokounmpo down. He explained how those sorts of outbursts did more damage than good.
It wasn’t the first time Middleton had confronted Antetokounmpo. People who have been around the Bucks the past few years say that if Antetokounmpo needs correcting, it’s Middleton who pulls him aside. And when Middleton talks, Giannis listens.
"He’s quiet, but his voice is loud in our locker room," Budenholzer said of Middleton during the Eastern Conference finals. "His voice is loud in our timeouts."
The Bucks stormed back that night, erasing a 17-point halftime deficit and knocking off the Heat 130-116. Antetokounmpo’s 33 points led the way, with Hill adding six points and three assists in the second half.
It was just one moment in one game more than one year ago. But it also encapsulates the relationship that has carried the Bucks to their first NBA Finals since 1974.
Antetokounmpo, who's listed as questionable for Game 1 due to a hyperextended left knee, and Middleton aren’t the only All-Star teammates to spend multiple seasons chasing a championship together. But everything else about the pairing the Bucks have been building a contender around is unique, even by the literal definition of the word.
"It’s an unbelievable journey," Antetokounmpo said of his years with Middleton.
"It’s been a long journey, but it’s been a great journey," Middleton said.
The two have played eight seasons together, second in the NBA only to the Golden State Warriors' trifecta of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, and tied with the Portland Trail Blazers' duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum. Unlike many of those players, though, neither Antetokounmpo nor Middleton was a lottery pick. They arrived in the league as unknowns. They grew together. They’ve seen coaches and teammates, owners and arenas come and go. They’ve celebrated playoff wins and mourned postseason losses. They've both become fathers. They’ve adapted their roles in concert with each other as their skills and the Bucks’ needs have evolved.
That continuity has forged a bond. That bond has boosted both Antetokounmpo's and Middleton's games and fueled the Bucks’ success.
"There’s always been a huge amount of respect between the two, but over the years, they’ve grown to the point where they understand each other, too," Bucks owner Marc Lasry said in a phone interview. "They trust each other because both of them know that the other is trying to put them in the best position to succeed."
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Antetokounmpo and Middleton both arrived in Milwaukee in 2013 — to little fanfare. Antetokounmpo was a long-limbed, 18-year-old kid from Greece whom the Bucks had plucked with the draft’s 15th pick. He was a lottery ticket who spoke broken English and had a name even die-hards couldn’t pronounce.
Middleton's path was different, though the results were the same. He was a former second-round pick whom even die-hards didn’t know. In the summer of 2013, he came over from the Detroit Pistons as a salary throw-in so the Bucks could acquire point guard Brandon Knight. Pistons general manager Joe Dumars had been a little reluctant to part with Middleton, whom then-Bucks GM John Hammond and his staff had scouted at Texas A&M and liked.
But no one expected Middleton or Antetokounmpo to one day become the focal points of a Finals team.
Antetokounmpo and Middleton spent a lot of time together their first season, despite competing for minutes. Both typically took the early bus to the arena to get in extra workout time before tip-off. They’d play one-on-one after practice, with the battles often growing so physical that Antetokounmpo would go home after and show his family the scratches on his arms. They’d compete in shooting drills, moving from one spot to another across the 3-point arc under the tutelage of assistant coach Josh Oppenheimer. Middleton was always the better shooter, but Bucks staffers would still hear Antetokounmpo talking trash.
"If he won one spot, he’d say things like, ‘I’m coming, Khris. I’m coming. I got one spot today. Guess how many I’m getting tomorrow,’" recalled Ross Geiger, a video coordinator with the Bucks at the time.
The two teammates also learned about the realities of the NBA together. Caron Butler, a current Heat assistant who played in the NBA from 2002 to 2016 and spent part of the 2013-14 season in Milwaukee, recalled losing his composure in the locker room following a late-season loss to the Pistons. He believed the Bucks were tanking games to secure a high draft pick and was furious.
"And both of them come up to me and were like, ‘What does that mean? What’s tanking?’" Butler said in a phone interview. "They both wanted me to teach them what I thought they should know about what tanking is and how you know if your team is doing it."
Two years later, in July 2015, Middleton signed a five-year, $70 million contract extension; Antetokounmpo's four-year, $100 million deal came the following fall. Their careers remained on parallel paths — until Middleton tore his hamstring during a practice early in the 2016 season.
His absence created a vacuum that the emerging Antetokounmpo filled. By the time Middleton returned to the court, it was clear the Bucks had become Antetokounmpo’s team. His skills had become dominant. His intensity was the sort of special trait that could lift and inspire everyone around him.
"When you have a teammate who works exceptionally hard, I think everybody feels they need to do the same thing," Lasry said. Many former Bucks staffers believe Middleton benefitted from watching and trying to match the way Antetokounmpo worked.
Middleton could no longer question the team's hierarchy. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an opportunity for him to thrive. The Bucks believed Middleton’s perimeter smoothness and calm demeanor could complement Antetokounmpo’s rim hunting and fury.
"I think Khris pushes Giannis, and I think Giannis pushes Khris," Lasry said.
In May 2018, the Bucks tabbed Budenholzer to replace the fired Jason Kidd and interim leader Joe Prunty. Before taking the job, though, Budenholzer met with Antetokounmpo and Middleton over breakfast at a local Spanish restaurant. Budenholzer laid out his expectations: how he wanted Middleton to take fewer contested midrange pull-ups and shoot more 3s, how he wanted Antetokounmpo to play faster and with more aggression.
Antetokounmpo and Middleton had some thoughts of their own. Once again, their differences were on display. Antetokounmpo came to breakfast with notes jotted down in a black Nike notebook. Middleton winged it.
The back and forth helped sell Budenholzer on the job.
"It was great to just see them allow each other space, whether it’d be talk or ask questions or share the moment. They play off each other well and respect each other," he told The Athletic’s Eric Nehm in February 2019, adding, "I think you could feel that connection. Just the way they interacted, the way they kind of shared the conversation and looked to each other."
Three years removed from that breakfast, Antetokounmpo and Middleton have leveraged that chemistry into a trip to the Finals. They’re comfortable enough off the court that Middleton could buy Antetokounmpo a pen for his birthday, a gift meant to coax him into signing an extension with the Bucks, which he did in December.
On the court, the Bucks then spent this season tweaking their crunch-time offense, transferring some responsibility away from Antetokounmpo and into Middleton’s hands. Many players in Antetokounmpo’s shoes — two-time MVPs whose legacies get litigated on TV following every playoff loss — would have bristled at such a proposal.
Antetokounmpo has embraced it. He has become a willing late-game screener for Middleton, the latest example of the two men merging their diverging skill sets to create a strength. The Bucks, riding Middleton’s one-on-one mastery, went 24-12 in games that were within five points with less than five minutes remaining in the regular season and have gone 4-2 in these situations in the playoffs. In the fourth quarter of their pivotal Game 3 Eastern Conference finals win, Middleton outscored the Hawks 20-17 by himself.
Antetokounmpo's willingness to relinquish some playmaking duties allowed the Bucks to eliminate the Hawks without him being on the floor. He missed the final two games of the series due to his knee injury.
"I trust this guy to death," Antetokounmpo said of Middleton. "If he wants the ball, he gets it. Simple as that."
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You’d be hard-pressed to find an NBA duo who better complement each other. Antetokounmpo brings the power and paint prowess, Middleton the perimeter chops. Antetokounmpo is the quiet but fiery competitor who inspires teammates, Middleton the calming but vocal presence who organizes the group. Both players command respect from teammates. Both are beloved.
And both are now forever connected.
They recognize it, too. Around the start of the Eastern Conference finals, Antetokounmpo and Middleton were sitting in the locker room, reminiscing about their time together and thinking about the future. Antetokounmpo asked Middleton how many more seasons he plans to play.
"We just had a silly conversation," Antetokounmpo recalled recently. "I’m not going to say exactly what he said, but I told him, ‘Hey, the day you retire is going to be the toughest day in my career because, like, I’ve been with you the whole time.’"
Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of "Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports." Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.