Things Aren't Looking Good For Giannis Antetokounmpo

NBA All-Stars have been announced, but Giannis is getting taken for granted. #NBA #Giannis #LeBron
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This is meant to be a quick video because I don’t even know how much I’m supposed to believe in this, and I hope you don’t believe in this. Somehow we’ve become desensitized to Giannis’s greatness and we’ve forgotten.

We need to give Giannis his flowers. The guy who put up 50 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 blocks in the closeout game of the NBA finals while oh yeah still handling the ball at the age of 26 last year is now suddenly less than the guy who “we don’t know what he’s going to bring” Ja. No disrespect to you man, you’ve been great, but not MVP.

The MVP race has been evolved. Steph was the runaway until the Dom Curse...and well the slump is real.

Durant is unfortunately injured which leaves 3 players. The guy who can’t shoot, the boring guy who can’t run fast and Joel Embiid. **Well that’s what the media would want you to believe which again I hope you don’t.**

3 international players, I’ve made a video on Nikola Jokic and why no one cares about him. And Joel Embiid is getting some credit, only takes a streak like this, but we’re here to talk about Giannis because what he’s doing this year is again, ridiculous. In just 32.7 minutes per game, he’s averaging 28.6 points, 11.3 rebounds, 6 assists 1.5 blocks while shooting 53% from the field and a 60.1% true shooting.

So even when he’s top 5 in the league in scoring, top 5 in rebounding, top 10 in blocks, top 5 in PER, for years, fans, media, they all get bored. To the point where they stop caring unless he breaks this new standard, not just maintains it. Nevermind that actual improvement in his passing.

It’s similar to MVP voter fatigue, phenomenon when one player wins MVP over and over so people crave for something new. The first was with Kareem Abdul Jabbar who won MVP 6 times in 10 years so they changed the vote from players to broadcasters and sportswriters. Other examples include Michael Jordan in 1997 who was fresh off of winning MVP nearly unanimously in 1996. His stats dipped by less than a point, less than a percent field goal, and the Bulls won 69 games! Karl averaged less points, and less win shares and lost the finals to Jordan. And then next year, Jordan had a story, voter fatigue was gone and he won it again.

You potentially say the same about LeBron in 2011. He had won in 2009 and 10, but moving to the Heat made him villain number 1 and so despite having better stats than Derrick Rose in nearly every category Rose and having similar records, Rose won.

Before the NBA bubble, Giannis was dominating the league, 29.6 points and 13.7 rebounds a game with 5.8 assists in 30.9 minutes a game with the highest PER in the league, highest plus minus in the league, the best defensive player in the league, DPOY, the Bucks with the best record in the NBA. But people were tired of Giannis being at the top even without succeeding in the playoffs and so there was another narrative, another player: LeBron James. Even though the Lakers weren’t as good, even though LeBron was 9th in PER and his teammates Anthony Davis was 4th, even though MVPs couldn’t happen if they were playing with another MVP level player, the agenda for LeBron was pushed. Yup, LeBron despite playing with Anthony Davis who himself was averaging 26.

The question with Giannis was always the playoffs and even with that, we saw progression, year by year, figuring out the wall, physical perimeter defenders, big men, all that to average 30.7 points including 35 points per game in the finals, and be dominant defensively. That gave him respect that he deserved for a long time comin, but still not the respect he deserves right now.

I understand that stats have become inflated, I understand that records are being broken constantly now, but we should take everything else into context. We don’t even need to compare raw stats. There are only 3 players in NBA history to win MVP, DPOY, and Finals MVP. He’s the first player in NBA history to finish top 20 in 5 major stat categories. Giannis relative to his peers simply put is dominant, above and beyond. But we’re used to him dunking on people, making the craziest blocks, handling the ball at 6’ 11”, post fadeaway, euro stepping. We’ve truly become desensitized. I’m not saying that we need to think that Giannis is MVP, but we need to acknowledge what he is doing.

The hype Ja is getting right now is without any accolades, without the best achievements in the sport. Imagine if he had a few MVPs, was doing what Giannis is, we would never hear the end of it.