Giannis Antetokounmpo has expressed frustration with the Bucks’ inconsistent effort and 14-20 record this season.
Antetokounmpo has called on his teammates to build better habits and trust one another to turn the season around.
The Bucks’ star stated he must be a better leader and hopes his actions will inspire the team to play together.
Giannis Antetokounmpo began his 13th season in a unique place in his career, as not just the best player on the Milwaukee Bucks, but their longest-tenured and oldest of the rotation players.
It’s a different kind of leadership position for the 31-year-old, who has often preferred to lead by example. He’s become more vocal over the last few seasons, but without Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Pat Connaughton and even Damian Lillard, Antetokounmpo is at the top of the mountain in more ways than one.
And it’s been a frustrating season for him.
Individually, he’s been largely unhealthy since straining his left adductor back on Nov. 17. He has played 30 minutes in a game just twice since Nov. 15. He usually misses over a dozen games per season, but rarely for extended periods like he has for the adductor and a right calf strain.
As a team, the Bucks enter the new year at 14-20 and out of the postseason picture entirely. Currently, they have nearly the same odds of winning a top-four pick in the NBA draft (11.7%) in the lottery as earning a playoff spot (12.1%).
The Bucks have not been this bad, this deep in a regular season since they were 13-21 on Jan. 1, 2015. In that season they finished 33-49 and 12th in the Eastern Conference. Playoff disappointments aside, the Bucks have been a playoff lock for about a decade.
And Antetokounmpo has said from the moment the season began in October that the Bucks were talented and could be dangerous if they played hard and right (with effort, ball spacing and movement) every night. If not, he has flatly said they will not be good.
Unfortunately, the team has not had that effort consistently enough. And they have not been successful.
Now they’re in a dogfight. Antetokounmpo knows this.
He said it on Dec. 27 after a win in Chicago, when he windmill dunked his way to a postgame shoving match between his teammates and the Bulls. It was a symbolic gesture to his team that they have to play hard for 48 minutes, that if they miss the playoffs the team will be broken up. He followed that up after a win in Charlotte on Dec. 29 that the team complained about non-calls or not getting the ball enough too often.
Then following a brutal loss to the Washington on Dec. 31, where the Wizards scored four points in the final 30 seconds to win 114-113, head coach Doc Rivers unloaded on the team for lack of focus and effort.
And Antetokounmpo once again found himself having to explain how things need to change, and in short order, for a great story to be written. Because he knows, perhaps better than most, that once you get into the postseason, anything can happen.
Here are Antetokounmpo’s big picture comments from his postgame media session before the New Year:
Following a roughly two-minute breakdown of the final 30 seconds of action against the Wizards, Antetokounmpo added, “I feel like winning two sometimes, we won two games in a row, sometimes our focus wasn’t there. We started the game by doing the right thing. I think we went a little bit away from that.
Giannis Antetokounmpo outlined changes for Bucks to start winning
