Milwaukee Bucks: Highlights From SI’s Giannis Antetokounmpo Feature

Jason Kidd’s Stats

A moment that for many will always stand out as a major milestone in the earlier years of Giannis’ development, Jason Kidd’s decision to give his young forward a DNP out of the blue against the Cavaliers back in 2015 has already been discussed at length by many.

For a long time, the details were few and far between. Jared Dudley was one of the first to shed some light on things when he appeared on Zach Lowe’s Lowe Post Podcast last year. As Dudley recalled it at the time:

"I think something happened in practice or whatever, and Jason Kidd was like, hey you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. It would happen throughout the course of the season, Giannis would do stuff once in the blue moon. We were trying to change the culture, and I met with J-Kidd, captains did, and stood behind him. And Giannis with his thing took it on the chin, said it won’t ever happen again, and we’re going to move forward."

Giannis’ decision to take his punishment on the chin at that time may have appeared to those in the locker room as a sign of great maturity. In speaking with Jenkins, Antetokounmpo revealed that there was a reason why he paused before confronting his head coach over any decision to bench him, though.

"The first time Kidd benched him, Antetokounmpo was irate. “I was like, ‘Let’s see what this guy did in his career, anyway,’ ” Antetokounmpo recounts, and called up Kidd’s bio on his phone. “I saw Rookie of the Year, NBA championship, USA Olympic gold medal, second in assists, fifth in made threes, blah, blah, blah. I was like, ‘Jesus freaking Christ, how can I compete with that? I better zip it.’ ”"

While Antetokounmpo not knowing about Kidd’s illustrious playing career may appear to be just the latest in a long line of endearing Giannis stories, it puts further emphasis into how different his route to the NBA was.

In explaining how he never even understood his own physical gifts until much later, Antetokounmpo noted:

"“A lot of players will tell you, ‘When I was a kid, I watched Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, LeBron, Magic, and I wanted to be just like them,’ ” Antetokounmpo says. “For me it wasn’t like that at all.”"