For all the Milwaukee Bucks have had to deal with this season in terms of injuries and availability, one thing they’ve been able to count upon on an almost-nightly basis is Giannis Antetokounmpo.
No, the two-time Most Valuable Player and burgeoning superstar hasn’t played every minute of every game for Milwaukee this season — he’s missed 10 of the Bucks’ 51 games due to knee soreness, rest and load management — but when he is in the lineup, the Bucks know exactly what they’re going to get.
Yet, at the same time, they also know there’s a pretty good chance that they’ll see something they’ve never seen before.
Such is life when one of the greatest players in the history of the league is on your roster: remarkable performances that look easy combined with mind-boggling feats that seem like they’re straight out of a video game.
Take, for example, Antetokounmpo’s aforementioned 50 points against the Wizards which came in just 30 minutes of action. It marked his second 50-point game this season, making him just the third player in franchise history to score at least 50 in a game twice in one season and one of just five players in the league to do so this season.
That game came on the heels of a 41-point effort two nights earlier, giving him 10 40-point games this season. That ties the career-high he set last season one less than league leader Luka Doncic and after dropping another 34 Tuesday night in a 124-115 victory over charlotte that extended Milwaukee’s winning streak to five games, Antetokounmpo is averaging 31.8 points this season, good for third in the NBA.
“It’s crazy how casual his dominance of a game has gotten, ‘cause he does it so often," Bucks guard Grayson Allen told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jim Owczarski earlier this month.. "The difference between him getting 38 or 55 doesn’t feel like that much but it’s pretty crazy when he does something like that.”
The scary part, at least for Milwaukee’s opponents across the league, is Antetokounmpo doesn’t think he’s even remotely close to being a complete player yet.
In an exclusive interview with longtime The Athletic’s Eric Nehm, who’s covered the team since Antetokounmpo came into the league as a wide-eyed teenager nearly a decade ago, Antetokounmpo made it clear that the best may be yet to come.
"Do I think I'm better this year? One hundred percent," he told Nehm. "Do I believe I've shown it? No. But it's very scary to me, because every day I go back home, I'm like, 'Holy s—t. I still, I know that I have more.'"
History suggests that Antetokounmpo isn’t being braggadocios. Any time critics have identified a flaw in his game, he’s made a point to address it. Take for example, his shooting, his mid-range game and his free-throw shooting. All of those have been an issue at times and while far from perfect, his improvements in those areas have been noticeable.
The next challenge is noticeable, too: shooting the 3-ball. For his career, Antetokounmpo has connected at a rather unremarkable 28.7% clip and is hitting just 27.4% of his long-distance attempts this season, a tick below the 29.3% he shot last season.
Part of that has to do with the Bucks’ rash of injuries, which has led to changes in the rotation and personell and not allowed Antetokounmpo as many opportunities to venture out to the perimeter.
But Antetokounmpo gets those chances, and takes advantage of them as he did Sunday night when he closed out a 50-point performance with back-to-back treys against Washington, it’s a tantalizing glimpse into the future.
“What I hope people don’t do is take it for granted,” reserve guard Pat Connaughton said. “People I think take a little bit of what Giannis does for granted in the sense of he scores 30 and he grabs to 10, 15 rebounds every single night. And I think the irony behind that is, like, that’s not normal.”
