How two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo is working to take his game to next level
Two hours before tipoff, Giannis Antetokounmpo starts work.
It begins with a dribbling meander up and back along the 14 feet of three-point line in the corner, working the ball like a brush stroke, crossing in front of legs, through and behind. Then come free throws. Additional free throws break up a progression of mid-range and three-point shots winding from one edge of the court to the other. Then he works the paint. The pattern is complete in about 20 minutes.
In short, in his words, “Just getting better. Just improving.”
Upgrade four all-NBA selections, two most valuable player awards and a defensive player of the year honor? Better than? Greatness has always been a pursued interest, but with the playoff exits, and believing he hadn’t quite reached his individual ceiling, he has almost redoubled the chase.
This begs the broader question: Can it happen?
“I’m sitting here thinking where can he go? Where is he at?” Bucks general manager Jon Horst began, before laughing to himself. “Literally as you asked the question I envisioned Bob Ross sitting on PBS and he’s like got his palate, like this blank canvas and he’s painting the foundation of a picture. And you’re like what in the heck is this picture? And you know it’s going to be great because it’s Bob Ross. Then he gets his brush and he starts putting in the trees and he starts putting in the river and it becomes a masterpiece, right?
“I don’t know why but you asked the question and Giannis is on the foundation piece of the canvas of a Bob Ross painting that’s going to become this masterpiece.”
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Never settling
If Antetokounmpo is the artist, his nearly seven-foot, 250-pound frame is his easel on which he’s looking to create a picture never dreamed possible. It begins with who he is: Exuberant, funny, joyful.
“I’m just out to have fun as much as possible,” he said. “When you start feeling like you have to do stuff, you lose it. It’s no fun. You gotta feel like you want to do stuff. You gotta feel like you want to come in the arena and play. So I’m in that mindset, I want to come and play, I want to come and compete.
“I’m just trying to have fun and just being me. I’m ok and I’m happy with being me.”
The individual accolades were not happy accidents, however. If his career can be considered one evolving piece of work, the initial layers were laid alla prima with hours spent in the Bucks’ practice facilities. Losses to Khris Middleton and Brandon Knight in shooting and ball handling contests added coats. So did the gym work after games.
“Of course he’s changed – he’s a man now, with a family and a lot of responsibility,” said Bucks assistant coach Josh Oppenheimer, who was with the team from 2013-16 and returned this season. “But his core hasn’t changed. And his core is what makes him great, not only as a player but as a man, as a person and as a partner, a father, a son, a brother, a teammate. It’s been amazing to see.”
Former Bucks director of scouting Billy McKinney played in Chicago and then coached and worked in the Bulls front office. He said Antetokounmpo’s work ethic reminded him of Michael Jordan. Former Bucks assistant coach Scott Williams, who also played with Jordan, agreed. Williams added he’d only seen such drive in three other players: Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and LeBron James. Former Bucks assistant coach Joe Prunty also likened it to Nowitzki. And Tim Duncan.
Antetokounmpo smiles. He admits he remains stubborn and goes back-and-forth with Budenholzer about how long he’s in the gym.
But it is different.
“His work has become much more efficient,” Oppenheimer said.
No longer is Antetokounmpo the happy little cloud floating in the distance. He’s more connected to his basketball world, and what he wants to create in it – a painting that began over two months in Greece during the shortened offseason.
Improve at the free-throw line. Play lower to the court and improve ball-handling. Find your spot on the court and pull up for the jumper. Work on the three-point shot. Rep it, rep it and rep it again.
“I was born to do this," he said. "I was born to be on the court. I was born to make my teammates better. I was born to work. If I don’t work I can’t go home. I don’t sleep well at night.”
Initially, Antetokounmpo thought the season would start in January. Suddenly, he was back in Milwaukee in December. Instead of exploring in pickup games, he was going to have to experiment, create, stumble and succeed under the lights. The brush had to bend, or all the little leaves weren’t going to show.
“The great players will not be deterred by the lack of success of doing something at that moment because it doesn’t look pretty,” McKinney said. “That takes so much courage and guts because people say well why doesn’t he go to his go-to move? Because at some point people like to take away your go-to and you’ve got to have some other options.”
Those options are built into the routines after shootarounds, practices, and pre-game. It’s in the film study, the note taking. Then it’s the doing.
“I want to apply what I’ve been working on in practice and I want to trust my work,” Antetokounmpo said. “That’s what my mindset is going into every game.”
Which sounds easy, but those in the game insist it’s not. Every part of his game is dissected. Analysis on what he should be doing, or not doing, is breathless. It’s having to answer for 1 for 10 from the free-throw line. Or an airball. Or losing a dribble.
“It is hard to change,” Oppenheimer said. “It is hard to add new things when you could just continue to do what you do and be great. He’s trying to take another step.”
The thing is, as in Horst’s analogy, no one knows where that leads. All that is certain is Antetokounmpo wants to scrape every dollop off the palate.
“It’s the type of work ethic that makes you an MVP,” Williams said, “That makes you in the discussion for greatest player of all time.”
What he's doing
Antetokounmpo adjusts his headphones and nods with a beat as he works through his pregame routine. This is his world, his creation. He’s at play with depth, perspective, adding shades and highlights.
“If you watch him working out before games you can see the things that he’s working on,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. “They’re all things that make total sense. Stretching out the game with the three. Some subtle things having to do with his footwork. Every year his touch gets better, his release gets more refined.
“We have not seen a player like him, really, in the history of this game.”
Free throws: The Internet alit Dec. 12 when Antetokounmpo debuted a new free-throw form. His right elbow was tucked, ball set off his hip. By Dec. 27, it was gone.
“It wasn’t comfortable,” Oppenheimer said. “So, we made an adjustment.”
On Jan. 15 Antetokounmpo went 1 for 10 from the line and was whistled for a 10-second violation on Jan. 24. Three days later, he incorporated a pre-shot routine where he settles and pantomimes a shot before taking the ball. He went 8 for 14 on Jan. 27.
“It’s a way for him to remind himself of the things that are important in his shot, in his free throw to do,” Oppenheimer said, “which has made him confident and he’s getting great results with it.”
Since the change, he is shooting 72.3%.
The results have gone beyond the percentages, too. In Boston on Dec. 23, Antetokounmpo missed the second of two free throws that could have sent the game to overtime. On Feb. 28, he sank two against the Los Angeles Clippers to give the Bucks a 101-100 lead.
“I know who I am, I know what I do,” he said. “I know how much work I put in and I just went to the free-throw line, did my routine, trust in my technique and I was able to knock both of them down.”
Three-pointers: With the shot clock winding down against the Clippers, Antetokounmpo found himself with the ball as the open man in the corner. The Clippers were inclined to let him shoot. He did, and he made it.
Though he is shooting 28.5% from the three-point line, the leaves are in there. Specifically, when he brings the ball up. He’s hitting 32.1% of his pull-up threes, up from 28.9% from last season and 28% the year before.
“The history of the league has shown guys can transform their games in certain ways,” Detroit coach Dwane Casey said. “And I see that happening with him.”
Expanding the range: In the post, Antetokounmpo confidently lofts a hook shot. He extends the ball for a fake and loops around the other side. In the middle of the lane he pushes off one leg, lilting backwards. He’ll fade, or spin, away from double teams.
In the first half Antetokounmpo averaged 1.03 points per possession and 3.5 points per game in the post, up from 0.92/3.0 a year ago and 0.99/3.0 two seasons ago. His free-throw frequency out of the post has jumped nearly eight percentage points from last season and nine from two years ago. His turnover percentage has plummeted.
“He’s got a lot of power down there but he’s also got good footwork,” Toronto coach Nick Nurse said. “He’ll spin you around, up and under you, spin you around again. That’s one thing. Obviously he’s shooting from the perimeter quite a bit more. If teams are playing off him he’ll go ahead and fire those. He’s got a pretty good release and he’s starting to make a good chunk of them as well.”
The mid-range part of his game isn’t where he’d like to be, not yet. Antetokounmpo is shooting 31.6% from 10-14 feet and 27.3% from 15-19 feet, his lowest marks since 2017-18.
“I’ve worked on it,” he said of his mid-range game. “I’m older now. There’s nothing to second guess. It something I’ve done over and over and over again. I’ve made a thousand makes. I’m confident enough. My teammates want me to shoot it. I want to shoot it. My team wants me to shoot it, so if it’s there I’m going to take it.”
There is no greater example of that than the 20-footer he took at the end of the game in Phoenix on Feb. 10. He gathered the inbound above the three-point line, took two dribbles left to the top of the free throw circle. The ball was long, but the process was right.
“He’s definitely working to kind of grow his game and evolve,” Budenholzer said. “Part of that is taking shots from different parts of the court. I think he feels like, we feel like, him getting to the rim and finishing is something that’s always going to be his fastball, it’s going to be his go-to move, but the more we kind of develop and he develops and grows other parts of his game I think the better he’s going to be, the better we’re going to be.”
The steps he took leading to that shot in Phoenix, the angle of his body, the spot he got to, his setup, is the process. He knows he can’t control what happens after the ball leaves his hand, but if the process is right, he believes he'll get the right result.
Keeping perspective
Antetokounmpo’s plan keeps track of each happy little tree so they all don’t run together, but patience is required. He has found that, too. No longer bogged down in undesired outcomes, he has kept his joy. He’ll also remind that the brush is not set down after regular-season games. It will not be until, he hopes, much further down the road.
It's a leadership tact, too. His emotions cannot be unwieldly, for his sake or the team's.
"He’s been punching through a wall for so long, and I think that’s why he’s him," Thanasis Antetokounmpo said. "But at the same time, I feel like the way he tries to process this year and try to get everybody together is good.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo will joke that it is because he is 26, and now old and weird. But what it is, is the blending of age, the experience of eight-plus seasons and the reaching of his physical prime.
“He just sort of keeps pushing and pushing and pushing along and he sees the improvement,” Oppenheimer said. “I see the improvement. And maybe he really grasps it in the playoffs. We talk about all the time, OK you shot this make or miss – that’s a playoff shot. That’s a shot when we play the Heat or we play Toronto or we play whoever and they build a wall and you get to that spot and you’ve got to pull up and shoot it. And maybe the confidence gets there in April. Maybe it’s May.
“But it’s getting there. And it’s coming.”
Two MVPs later, Antetokounmpo continues to tap the canvas. It’s not that he’s greedy but he does want more – because he knows paint remains on the palate. So, each day, he pulls and pushes the brush.
“He’s got so much that he can add, so much that he’s going to add and that he’s going to do to a game that’s already incredible, into a teammate that’s already incredible,” Horst said. “Yeah, he’s done so much already individually and he’s improved our team and our team has done so much as a team, but we’re really at the early foundation stages of building what hopefully is a great individual, historic career and team, franchise-type of legacy and career.
“Where can it be? That’s what it could be. I just think it’s so early and there’s so much promise and upside to everything that touches what he’s doing.”