This weekend will finally give the NBA their chance to celebrate the induction of a truly star-studded 2020 class into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
After the induction ceremony was delayed last September due to the coronavirus pandemic, much like everything else in the world, the likes of the late Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett headline one of the most decorated classes to go into the hall.
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While we’re far from this seeing this happen anytime soon, Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo will soon enough make his way to Springfield and join the likes of Bryant, Duncan and Garnett when Antetokounmpo’s own playing career is completed.
Those three figures have clearly made an imprint on the game of basketball and the NBA as we know it today. And the same can easily be said by what we’ve seen of Antetokounmpo and he has carved his unique path to the NBA and stardom at large.
So without further ado, let’s explore how Giannis Antetokounmpo has taken inspiration from all three of Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett as they go into the Hall of Fame.
How Giannis Antetokounmpo emulates Kevin Garnett’s intensity
When Kevin Garnett entered the NBA in the summer of the 1995, he blazed trail for all prep players who envisioned a going into the league directly from high school, though he was far from the first to do so. However, it wound up being a path that Antetokounmpo followed down when he was an 18-year-old gangly teenager when the Bucks selected him with the 15th overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft.
After finishing up his 21-year career in the fall of 2016, Garnett got an upfront look to a developing Antetokounmpo as he set the stage for his breakout 2016-17 campaign, a year in which he finished as the league’s Most Improved Player. Garnett had served as a consultant to then-Bucks head coach Jason Kidd for the 16-17 and 2017-18 seasons.
While being under Garnett’s tutelage over that span, Antetokounmpo reflected on what it was like to soak up such valuable time with the Hall of Famer to Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December of 2016:
"“I’ve talked to a lot of people, a lot of legends, but two of the guys that I really relate to, and I could see the fire in their eyes, were Kobe (Bryant) and KG,” Antetokounmpo said. “He said the ‘warrior mentality’ at least 200 times. I went there again and I was talking with Khris, and KG again said it 100 more times. He said without it you can’t be great in this league.”"
There’s no question that Garnett carried a warrior mentality both on and off the court on the way to his Hall of Fame career. The fiery intensity that Garnett played with during his years with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets served as such an essential element to what made him such extraordinary player, among other reasons.
And there’s no question that is part of what makes Antetokounmpo unique in his own right.