Giannis Antetokounmpo knows the pressure that awaits him: "If we don't win a championship, I could be traded"

If there is a player under pressure for the upcoming 2024/25 NBA season starting in a few days, that is Giannis Antetokounmpo. Since winning the title in 2021, the Milwaukee Bucks have only advanced past one playoff round, in 2022 against the Chicago Bulls, and have been falling short in the first round for two years.

"If we don't win this year, would you get fired?" Antetokounmpo asked his coworker with an ironic smile. "Do you have something in your mind like, 'What if this year doesn't go well?' Yes, if we don’t win a championship, they could replace me. Yes, this is the job we live in. This is the world we live in. It happens to everyone."

"Seriously, this is the job," Antetokounmpo continued. "It's the profession we're in. At any moment, if you don't succeed, that could be the end for us. It was the same with the previous coaching staff, and the year before, the previous players... If you don't do a good job, you're out."

Giannis Antetokounmpo's Words on Vassilis Spanoulis

"Spanoulis changed the way I see things," said Antetokounmpo, whose team had a 1-3 record in the group stage and secured Greece's first victory in the Olympics in 16 years (against Australia). "My approach to the game. My love for the game. Sometimes, I think you’re in your comfort zone. A lot of people are in a comfort zone, not even wanting to be there. You have to push yourself. You have to demand from yourself, and from the people around you. And he did that."

“I literally left my heart on the court, my kidney, my knee, and everything on the court, but he came to me and said, 'Your defense wasn't good enough,’” Antetokounmpo said. “The next day, he said, 'I didn’t see the fire in your eyes. Your defense wasn't good enough.' Every day was something different. He just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing me, saying, 'You have more to give. Let's go. When I was 29, I was the best in Europe. I won consecutive championships. What are you doing?'

"All these conversations made me realize that I crave the challenge again," Antetokounmpo added. "Of course, it bothers you, but it puts you in the mood to say, 'Wait, I'll show you.' You don’t want to disappoint him. As with the Bucks, I don't want to disappoint Doc Rivers. I don't want to disappoint Dame. I don't want to disappoint my team."

"This year, a challenge for me is to stay healthy," he said. “A challenge for me is to play in the playoffs, get out of the damn first round. Impose myself even more. Every year for me is important because one day, I’ll be 35 or 36 or 38, and I’ll say, 'Oh, my best time has passed, and I couldn’t do anything.' So dominate."

Damian Lillard

"A big part of my life is my family, obviously my kids," said Lillard. "That's the most important thing for me. So, that affected me more than anything else. But they brought me here to do a job and show up. I did the best I could at that time. It was just tough. Everything was happening very fast for me last year.

"With the parenting time, I couldn't sort anything out. I didn't even have a place to live for the first few months of the season. I was in a small apartment they had assigned me. I couldn’t get my life together... But I think by having a full summer and knowing what it is, I was able to sort everything out to make it work much better for me this year. I could get my stuff in order."

"Now I’m much better," he said. "I'm much more at peace. That's how it is with everything. When tough times come, it seems like you say, 'Damn, this is the hardest time of my life.' And then, after a while, you realize it wasn’t that bad."

"I even gained perspective by being away from my family, away from my kids. It's not ideal, but there are people in much worse situations. There are people in prison who can't see their children, people wrongly convicted. There are people defending our country who don't have the opportunity to do anything. I see my kids. I can video call them. I gained a lot of perspective. This time I was able to organize myself much better."

"You're trying to figure out how to fit in with another star and someone else who has the ball," said Lillard. "(Antetokounmpo) had to figure out how to play with someone else who has the ball. And that was the same for me. So I think in the second year, obviously, you feel more comfortable with how everything looks. You know the coach. I know my teammates. I know Giannis much better. I know what it's like to play with him. So, considering all that, I think next year, generally, you adapt, and it's better."

Doc Rivers

"I showed a video where a player took a shot that clearly should have gone to someone else, and the other just ran down the court (without saying anything)," Rivers said. “So I stopped it and asked the player who didn't get the ball, 'What were you thinking?' He said, 'Well (shrugging), he should have passed the ball.' So I said, 'Okay, but you didn't tell him.' I told them, 'Guys, we have to get to the point where we talk.' It's not a difficult conversation. There's nothing wrong with saying, 'Hey!' And you know what? The other is going to say, 'I saw you, but I failed.' Or he may not take it well, and then you also have to overcome that. But when you get past all that, you become a proper team. There are no damn problems anymore."

"This is the passive-aggressive generation," he continued. "It's amazing. From my perspective as a coach, it's the biggest difference (compared to previous years). When Dominique (Wilkins) wouldn't pass me the ball (in Atlanta), I would say, 'Nique, what the hell?' And he literally said, 'Yeah, I saw you, but I think I'm the better option.' We would laugh about it. Or you get on the bus in my generation, and someone had been ripped. Boom! You have to pick up your stuff. It wasn’t that I was bad. But now, we don’t have much of that. So we're trying to encourage more communication."

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Giannis Antetokounmpo sabe la presión que le espera: "Si no ganamos un campeonato, me podrían traspasar"