The Next Generation: Giannis Antetokounmpo

Every season the draft brings a fresh infusion of talent to the NBA. In theory this is an even, steady process. In practice, hindsight and historical perspective show that there are borders and boundaries — talent doesn’t just arrive in the NBA, it arrives in generational waves. Sometimes we can’t see these aesthetic dividing lines for decades, sometimes you simply can’t miss them.

The present day NBA appears to be on the cusp of welcoming a remarkable new generation to its forefront — players who are not just incredible but incredibly unique. Players who will not just excel but transform the roles and responsibilities of basketball players as we understand them. Over the course of this week, The Step Back will be examining many of the players who could figure prominently in The Next Generation. Not every player we turn our attention to is destined to be a star, but all could play a role in defining the future of the NBA. Read the whole series here.

The Next Generation: Giannis Antetokounmpo

“Many confuse the term ‘ball-handler’ with point guard — just because one can handle the ball doesn’t make him a point guard.”

What was formerly a generally-accepted truth about titles as opposed to roles was supposed to serve as a window to a largely unknown European prospect (how many times over the past two decades have we uttered that phrase about some physical specimen with a distinctly un-Anglicized name?), to simultaneously boost expectation while pigeonholing.

Size isn’t the arbiter of position, until it is; LeBron James has never been a point guard, or even been referred to as one in passing, despite often being a ball-handler, yet his body is comparable to that of perhaps the greatest point guard of all-time, Magic Johnson. Know your lane, and fill it, until your starting center goes down. Only then do you unleash the baby hook shot.

The line above appears about three-quarters of the way through an otherwise startlingly accurate 2013 draft profile on the current starting point guard, not simply “ball-handler,” of the Milwaukee Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Greek Freak’s rise from teenage phenom to zeitgeist is unlike any other in the history of his chosen sport, and the more he progresses, the brighter the future becomes, both his own and that of basketball.

It begins with possibility, as it always did, but Giannis — going first name from here forth, both because it’s more efficient and because he’s earned it — seemed an especially exceptional case because no one really knew what to make of him. Even his (at the time) second-division Greek club, Filathlitikos, deployed him all over the court, letting his spindly appendages dictate and disrupt play here or there.

The son of Nigerian immigrants, Giannis became the next great European prospect, dragging NBA scouts to his games across the continent. Understandably, they marveled at the 18-year-old’s length and staggering, if mostly unrefined, athleticism, becoming enamored with the possibilities that his frame inspired.

Still, at the time he was viewed as not much more than a bundle of potential who would spend most of his time likely switching between the forward positions. Despite his willingness to learn, tendency to drift to the perimeter and ability to both initiate and finish the transition following a rebound, Giannis suffered, as many prospects do, from questions about his ability to shoot.

Questions regarding his ability to shoot abounded, but the possibilities he contained overwhelmed everything else. In a largely disappointing draft, the Milwaukee Bucks took Giannis with the No. 15 overall selection in 2013, behind several players whom, barring unlikely resurgences later on, will end up in the maligned bust bin.

As was predicted, Giannis arrived in Milwaukee raw, a smashing hunk of Play-Doh desperately in need of someone to shape him. Following a season under former Atlanta Hawks coach Larry Drew, Bucks management turned to none other than Jason Kidd, one of the smartest basketball minds ever, just coming off a successful yet contentious season with the Brooklyn Nets.

With Kidd, Giannis has noticeably progressed by leaps and bounds, both figurative and literal, in each season. Despite his own unfamiliarity with Kidd’s Hall of Fame-level playing career, Giannis embraced each challenge presented to him as the Bucks bottomed out and started to form a young core of players, with Khris Middleton and Jabari Parker surrounding him.

At the center of the Bucks, however, is Giannis, and that was never more apparent than when Kidd announced in March 2016 that the Freak would be the team’s full-time point guard immediately and that it would carry over into this season. Having impressed his coaching staff with his ability to take advantage of a variety of defenders through his court awareness and physicality, Giannis took on the role with the same style and vigor which first impressed scouts in those crowded European gyms.

Finishing last season with seven triple-doubles over the Bucks’ final 26 games, Giannis came into this one with the focus and determination he has needed to supercharge his game. He is the first (and, well, potentially only, regrets to Ryan Kelly) member of his aforementioned horrid draft class to be named an All-Star and is, this season, averaging 23.4 points, 5.4 assists and 8.4 rebounds at the helm of the Bucks. Despite the Bucks currently sitting at 25-30, Giannis has shown blinding flashes of MVP-caliber play.

His playmaking ability has already shown itself capable of erasing the doubt his long-range jump shooting may create, and even the latter isn’t frighteningly troubling. Giannis is already shooting the best field goal percentage of his career, and he’s only three 3pointers away from besting his career-high, 41, set during his rookie season.

With Khris Middleton lost for the majority of this season due to injury, Giannis has been forced to create more, to press more, to shoot more. It’s a Russell Westbrook proposition, one of impossible altitude. With Giannis, however, not only are all things possible, but the very extent of those things haven’t even reached their outer limits yet.

Watching Giannis corral a rebound, or poke a ball away, and then gallop to the opposite end of the floor in three steps or less for a layup has become one of the great joys of NBA highlight Twitter. If an account tags Giannis, and that highlight starts, you’re not going to continue scrolling until you’ve seen an entire novel written in six seconds or less, in a language you didn’t know you could speak.

As the next generation of talent rounds into form, with Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, Myles Turner and the rest pushing the bounds of what we formerly believed to be possible in the NBA, it may very well end up that Giannis Antetokounmpo, with his highlight-friendly playmaking ability and disproportionate position, ends up being the torch-bearer of a group of players that become more versatile with each passing generation.

Kevin Garnett is the most referenced pater familias, the Abraham whose offspring are becoming more numerous than all the traditional All-Stars in the galaxy. What the Milwaukee Bucks have in Giannis, however, is a truly unparalleled combination of size, strength, athleticism and basketball acumen, a player who continues to improve each year. That he currently leads the Bucks in all five major statistical categories — points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks — this late in the season is positively stupefying, until you actually watch him manipulate the court in a way which suits his uniquely astounding skill set.

Edith Hamilton’s compilation of stories concerning Greek mythological heroes first saw the public’s eye in 1942, a full twenty years before Oscar Robertson would average a triple-double in the NBA. She’ll never live to see perhaps the greatest Greek hero of them all, a man who combines the strength of Hercules with the persistence of Odysseus. As Giannis Antetokounmpo grows, so, too, grows the game of basketball.