Milwaukee Bucks Believe Giannis Antetokounmpo Will Be Best Player in 2013 NBA Draft Class
By Josh Hill
The Milwaukee Bucks went out on a limb and grabbed a top European player at No. 15 overall in this past Thursday when they drafted 18-year old Giannis Antetokounmpo from Greece. But while he may not be ready for a few years, Bucks director of player personnel believes that Antetokounmpo could be the best player in the draft class when we revisit how the players are doing a few years down the road.
“The bottom line is in two or three years he could easily be one of the best two or three players in this draft, talent-wise,” said Bucks director of player personnel Dave Babcock, via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Babcock went a step further and compared Antetokounmpo to another foreign player the Bucks took a chance on back in 2005 in Ersan Ilyasova. After taking a little while to catch on with the Bucks, Ilyasova is now one of the better players in the league and sits as a star on the Bucks roster moving forward with the franchise.
“There are a lot of similarities there as far as talent,” Babcock said to the MJS reporter Charles Gardner. “Ersan was a little further along as far as being exposed to the game. But both were very passionate guys, hard workers, and basketball was the No. 1 thing in their lives.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo seems to be another guy that will take a while to port over to the NBA but when he does it seems he’ll be a big part of the Bucks future and that’s something Milwaukee is greatly looking forward to given the state of the roster moving into the 2013-14 season.