Giannis Antetokounmpo was eliminated from the playoffs but won on the podium — again

Melissa Rohlin

FOX Sports NBA Writer

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Imagine your team blowing a seven-point lead in the final 40 seconds of overtime in an elimination game of your first-round playoff series against the Indiana Pacers. 

Imagine having the crushing realization this could be your final game for the Milwaukee Bucks, the franchise that drafted you 12 seasons ago and helped transform you from a skinny teenager into a champion and two-time MVP. 

Imagine, as you linger at the top of the key for a few moments, heartbroken, the father of the other team’s superstar, who made the game-winning shot in the final seconds, storms onto the court and approaches you. He waves a towel with Tyrese Haliburton’s face on it and tells you, “This is what we f—ing do. This is what the f—- we do.” 

Imagine the moment getting so intense that you had to be separated by Bucks players and team security. 

Now, imagine having just a few seconds to process this before you’re asked about it in a room filled with reporters — and cameras that will broadcast your words to millions of more people at home. 

This was the situation Giannis Antetokounmpo found him in after pouring his heart out in a 30-point, 20-rebound and 13-assist triple-double in the Bucks’ 119-118 overtime loss to the Pacers in Game 5 on Tuesday. Yet, faced with these unimaginable circumstances, with emotions at a feverish pitch, he responded with one of the most thoughtful responses in recent memory. 

It’s Antetokounmpo’s gift. 

While LeBron James is the face of the league, Antetokounmpo could be its mouthpiece. No one delivers more raw, honest and thought-provoking answers in the most fraught moments. 

With a painful loss and an uncertain future weighing heavily on his broad shoulders, Antetokounmpo launched into a 3-minute and 40-second soliloquy about his interaction with Haliburton’s father, John. During it, we gleaned a better understanding of how he thinks and how he was raised. He peeled back the curtains, inviting his fans to understand him, instead of keeping them at an arm’s length distance. 

“All I’ll say is I believe in being humble in victory,” he said. “That’s the way I am. Now, there are a lot of people out there that can say, ‘No, when you win, you gotta talk s- and it’s a greenlight for you to be disrespectful to somebody else.’ I disagree.”

Antetokounmpo’s words weren’t empty. After leading his team to a championship in 2021, he embodied that ethos. 

And so did his family. 

“When we won the championship, I remember my mom, she was scared to cross [onto the court.],” he said. “She was like, ‘Am I allowed to come and hug my son?'”

Antetokounmpo also opened up about his father, who died of a heart attack three years into his career, crushing him to the point that he almost quit basketball in 2017. 

“My dad is not with us no more, but my dad used to come into the family room and was the most respectful person ever,” he said. “When you come from nothing and you work your whole life to sell stuff in the street, and your whole life, you’ll be scared of the police deporting you and sending you back to your country, and you have to protect your kids with all your means, you create this mentality of being humble. Your whole life, to not disrespect anybody, not make the attention high, the emotions high, so that anybody can snitch on you and say something bad about you. 

“So when he came here, I remember saying, ‘Dad, why are you so humble? Why do you go into the family room and don’t say a word? You sit in the back. Why you are like that?’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ That’s how I grew up. That’s what I had around.”

Antetokounmpo’s parents left Nigeria and immigrated to Athens, Greece, in 1991 in an attempt to give their children a better life. They lived in poverty and constant fear of deportation, with Antetokounmpo and his brothers selling DVDs and CDs in the street to help their parents make ends meet. 

With that context in mind, Antetokounmpo pointed out that he was surprised by Haliburton’s father’s actions, calling them “very disrespectful.” 

He acknowledged that at first, he thought Haliburton’s father was a fan, which could’ve put him in danger. 

He was honest enough to admit that in 20 years, he could be called a hypocrite because he’s not sure how he’d react if his son hit a game-winner.

He even said he was happy for Haliburton’s father.  

“That’s how he’s supposed to feel,” he said. “But coming to me and disrespecting me and cursing at me is totally unacceptable.”

When asked about the incident, Haliburton condemned his father’s behavior and said they’d have a talk. His father later posted an apology on X, writing, “This was not a good reflection on our sport or my son and I will not make that mistake again.” 

But Antetokounmpo needs to be given credit for the way he handled the situation, especially with the rumor mill over whether he will be traded — or request a trade — already starting to grind at a deafening decibel. And this isn’t the first time he has responded with grace and insight in an incredibly tough moment. 

After the Bucks’ first-round loss to the Miami Heat in 2023, a stunning upset for a team that had the best record in the East in the regular season and was favored to win a championship, Antetokounmpo was asked, “Do you view this season as a failure?”

His response is still being talked about today. 

“Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal, right? Which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to be able to provide the house for them or take care of your parents,” he said. “You work towards a goal. It’s not a failure; it’s steps to success.

“There’s always steps to it,” he continued. “Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships; the other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me?

“There’s no failure in sports. You know, there’s good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful, some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win; some other team’s gonna win. And this year, somebody else is gonna win. Simple as that.

“We’re gonna come back next year, try to be better, try to build good habits, try to play better, not have a 10-day stretch with playing bad basketball. You know, and hopefully we can win a championship. So 50 years from 1971 to 2021 that we didn’t win a championship, it was 50 years of failure? No, it was not. It was steps to it. You know, and we were able to win one. Hopefully we can win another one.”

Antetokounmpo’s response went viral and evoked heartfelt responses from other athletes and coaches. 

Said Warriors coach Steve Kerr: “My reaction was just how lucky we are to have Giannis in the league and being one of the marquee stars in the league, not only for his talent, but his humanity and his perspective.”

Added Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion tennis star, on Instagram: “This is probably the most refreshing perspective I’ve heard. I think it changed my life, lol.”

Two years later, in an incredibly tense moment in which his team had been booted from the first-round of the playoffs for the third straight year, Antetokounmpo was similarly vulnerable and incisive in the midst of emotional turmoil. 

He didn’t explode. He wasn’t closed-off and tight-lipped. He was open. He was honest. He was revealing.

While he may have lost the game, he won on the podium, setting an example for the level of thoughtfulness all athletes should strive for while given a platform that reaches millions of people around the world. 

Now, imagine not being impressed by him. 

That’s unimaginable. 

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.

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