Giannis Antetokounmpo cements his legend, lifts Milwaukee Bucks to NBA title

By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports NBA Writer

MILWAUKEE — Earlier this week, the NBA posted a video from 2013 on its official Twitter account. In the clip, a skinny boy with a baby face is showing an older couple — they look to be his parents — around his new workplace. 

"All these guys that are legends," Giannis Antetokounmpo says, pointing to the framed jerseys hanging from the ceiling of an arena in Milwaukee, next to a large green championship banner with the year 1971 stitched onto it in big white letters. "Because their number(s are) retired. Like the team in Greece, you know, how my number (is) retired." 

He was just an 18-year-old rookie at the time, new to the country, and game, with a name most couldn’t pronounce or spell. But even then, he was willing to set his sights high. 

"Maybe in 15 years, 20 years, maybe my number is up there, next to Kareem or Oscar Robertson," he says in the video. "I hope I’m there." 

Watching the clip today, you can tell Antetokounmpo’s heart isn’t fully in it, that he’s stating a dream but doesn’t fully believe that it’s one he can achieve. And for good reason. He was just a teenager from Greece, a kid who could barely dribble or shoot. He started playing basketball because he was tall and could run fast and wanted to help provide for his poor family. 

Forget retired numbers, the dream was just making the NBA. 

Eight years later, it’s jarring to think about how far he has come, about how much growth — as a person and player — and perseverance it has taken for him to reach the place where he sits now, which can best be described as King of the NBA World. 

Giannis reached that peak Tuesday night by putting on one of the greatest performances in NBA Finals history, a 50-point, 14-rebound, five-block masterpiece that lifted the Bucks to a title-clinching, 105-98 Game 6 victory over the Phoenix Suns. 

The win ended the team’s 50-year title drought. It also solidified Giannis’ place among the Oscars and Kareems and the rest of the game’s greats. Case in point: He’s just the third player in NBA history to have won an MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP. The other two are Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan. 

"I don't know how many words you need to use beyond 50 points in a close-out game in an NBA Finals. Pretty much sums it all up," Bucks center Brook Lopez said after the victory between sips of champagne. 

"But that's Giannis. That's what he does, and it's just, I mean, completely awe-inspiring. His performance tonight, this whole series, this whole year, there's no words for that. You've just got to look at the numbers."

Those numbers are absurd. In the Finals, Giannis averaged 35.2 points — on 61.8% shooting — 13.2 rebounds and five assists, making him the first player in NBA history to average 30 or more points, 10 or more rebounds, five or more assists and shoot 60% or better from the field. 

He finished the playoffs (21 games), averaging 30.2 points — on 56.9% shooting — 12.8 rebounds and 5.1 assists. He did all this despite hyperextending his left knee — a euphemism which doesn’t do the injury justice; his knee bent in a manner human knees are not supposed to bend  — midway through the postseason. 

"He's a freak. He's always been a freak," guard Pat Connaughton said. "And the things that he does in the weight room, the things that he does in physical therapy, the things he does to put his body in a position to go through the beating he goes through on a nightly basis, couple that with a hyperextended knee, for him to be back in a game in the Finals, in general, was freakish."

About an hour after the final buzzer, Giannis bounded into the press conference room at Fiserv Forum, champagne bottle in his right hand, cigar in his left, goggles covering his eyes. 

Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer, hair soaked in champagne, was in the middle of answering a question about Giannis and his impressive and odds-defying 17-for-19 performance from the free-throw line — but cut himself off. 

"Come on up, take over, I don't want to do any more media," he said with a laugh. "No, it's hard to find more words to describe what Giannis does. But the way he made his free throws, the way he did everything, stepped up, the poise, the confidence, the leadership. He has been working on it. We say we want Giannis to get to the free-throw line. We believe."

Antetokounmpo, standing in the back of the room, put down the champagne, stepped up to an imaginary foul line, and pretended to shoot free throws. A few minutes later, Budenholzer dismissed himself, and Antetokounmpo took his place atop the podium. 

It was time for his coronation. A smile stretched across his face. He held his Finals MVP trophy in his arm and the Larry O’Brien Trophy in his left. He planted a tender kiss on each. 

A reporter asked if, back when he started playing basketball, he ever dreamed of a moment like this.

"No, man. I started playing basketball just to help my family," Giannis replied. "Tried to get them out of the struggle, the challenges we were facing when we were kids. … I never thought I would be sitting here."

More questions came in. Antetokounmpo reflected on how far he’d come. His story is not one of linear growth. There have been stumbles and failures. 

Two years ago the Bucks blew a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals because the Toronto Raptors walled Giannis’ path to the rim, daring him to beat them in other ways, and he failed. Last year, the Miami Heat upset the Bucks by exploiting Giannis’ one-dimensional — drive, drive and drive some more — game. 

Giannis has been ridiculed. He has been mocked. He heard the criticisms. That he can’t shoot free throws. That his game didn’t translate to the playoffs. That, sure, he and his teams were dominant in the regular season, but the playoffs were a different game — and Giannis’ game wasn’t one built for playoff success. 

All of which was fair. But these criticisms also ignored what it is that makes Giannis great – the brute strength but also the beauty in how he deploys it, the relentlessness, the overwhelming power, the unmatched will. 

There are so many images that will endure from this tile. The game-saving block of Deandre Ayton in Game 4. The game-sealing alley-oop off Jrue Holiday’s steal in Game 5. But you know what I’ll also remember every time I think back to this series? The image of Giannis under the rim and in a crowd, scooping up a loose ball, rising above everyone and slamming the ball home. It’s his superpower, the thing he has that others don’t. 

Back in the press conference room, Antetokounmpo was asked about his journey to this point.

"I did anything that I could just to be on the court, just to be in this position," he said. He talked about all the different roles he has played, the times he doubted, how he started his career as a slasher, then became a point guard before transforming into the hybrid (which can best be described as LeBron meets Shaq) that he is today. 

The smell of a lit cigar filled the room. Giannis caressed the trophies. 

"Eight and a half years ago, when I came to the league, I didn't know where my next meal will come from. My mom was selling stuff in the street," he said. "Now I'm here sitting at the top of the top."

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.