Still the same defenders, only addition is Konate coming off a bad season, signed for free. CB Is arguably the most important position to improve. Current defenders are either injury prone, inexperienced or not good enough.
CDM, still only option is Tchouameni who, although very good at ball winning and being a mobile athletic midfielder, lacks the ability to break lines with passes consistently, control tempo of games, sustain attacks well against deep blocks and is outperformed in big games in midfield. Bernardo can do a job here but thats not his role.
Same positions we needed to strengthen last season. No change here means no change in outcome of season, then same issues arise only for people in this sub to throw the blame on Vini, Mbappe and Jude again.
Interesting turn of events for Bill Simmons.
Started with Bill Simmons saying Giannis’ trade value has tanked and he’s not worth as much as people think. Boston then makes an offer for Giannis including Jaylen Brown, this disgruntles the star while Milwaukee turns it down because the offer isn’t enough. Giannis gets traded for a huge haul of picks and young players to the Miami Heat.
Bill Simmons then says Jaylen Brown would cost a ransom. Now Jaylen Brown, in the prime of hie career, gets traded for close to nothing essentially, a 36 year old PG on a bad contract and a few picks (that were probably necessary to offload his contract anyway)
It’s a “what have you done for me recently” league, and he’s been injured this season so it seems like some people have forgotten just how impactful he is. Similar thing is happening to Luka to a lesser extent. But even this year, with the least help out of any top star by far, and with Doc Rivers and Darvin Ham as his coaches, his per-36 numbers (as he’s been on a minutes restriction and has also left games early due to injury) compare very well to other stars:
34.4/12.2/6.8 on 66% TS
Shai: 33.7/4.7/7.1 on 67% TS
Wemby: 30.9/14.2/3.8 on 63% TS
Jokic: 28.6/13.3/11.1 on 67% TS
Luka: 33.7/7.8/8.3 on 62% TS
(via nba.com)
He also had the 4th highest EPM last season behind SGA, Wemby and Jokic, ahead of Luka and Kawhi. Giannis is (still) a scoring, playmaking, rebounding 2 way phenom. He’s still the best interior scorer in the NBA by far (if you count both efficiency and volume). One of his best traits that’s not brought up enough is just how much of a mismatch problem he is, and how he almost always needs multiple bodies to slow him down, most NBA players say this often, stopping him is a team effort. His effort on defence is less now than it was in 2020 over a 82 game stretch, but even now he’s shown when he needs to ramp it up late game he does, like the end of the Lakers Bucks game this season where he got 2 consecutive stops on Lebron to win the game for the Bucks.
His longevity and injuries are also frequently brought up as major negatives.
Regarding longevity, people need to give him credit for how long he’s already been great. He just finished his 13th season. He’s averaged close to 30 PPG over the last 8 years, scored the most points in the NBA over the last decade, been an All-Star for 10 consecutive years, made All-NBA every year he’s been healthy since then, has 7 consecutive First Team selections, more First Team All-NBAs than every active player not named LeBron (yes, more than KD, Steph, Jokic, Harden, Russ etc) and has won every major NBA award outside of Rookie of the Year.
Will he still be averaging 30/12/6 on 60% shooting in 5 years when he’s in Year 18? Probably not. But I also don’t think he’ll fall off a cliff the way some people expect.
Here people compare him to Westbrook, who was a shorter guard that relied heavily on athleticism, or to bigs like Shaq and Dwight Howard, who didn’t have anywhere near Giannis’ game away from the basket, playmaking ability, or shot selection. Giannis is also a lot lighter than both of them despite his athletic build and has a completely different shot profile. To add to that, offense in today’s NBA is very different from what it was 20 years ago.
As for his playstyle, 2024-26 Giannis is a completely different player than 2019 Giannis. Back then he handled the ball from the top of the key constantly and often just ran through or jumped over defenders. Now he’s much more methodical. He gets a lot of easy baskets, operates from the elbow and low post a ton, is extremely effective utilising 45-cuts (Wade Lebron were great at this) and attacks mismatches very well despite the amount of attention he draws. He has had the most potent inverted PnR in the NBA for a decade which he uses often with AJ Green (and Pat Connaughton before him). He’s always been one of the most double-teamed players in the league and has consistently made teams pay for it.
His playmaking is underrated and sometimes under-utilised also, he’s become elite at hitting weakside corner (as help often comes from here when he beats his man in the post), also great as a 4-5 PnR ball handler, found Brook Lopez often down low or in rolls, frequently gets high assist games when teams overhelp especially over the last few years, had an 18 assist game earlier this season before the injuries.
As for the injuries, last season was really the first year of Giannis’ career where he missed significant time. From his first MVP season in 2018-19 through 2024-25, he averaged around 67 games per season, including the shortened season, which is comparable to most NBA stars.
His injuries have mostly just come at unfortunate times. There was the calf injury at the end of the 2024 season, and the Kevin Love undercut in Game 1 of the 2023 first round that he eventually returned from and played through while hurt. Last season he was healthy throughout both the regular season and playoffs.
This season he’s dealt with calf issues again, and that’s the biggest question moving forward. How well he recovers from those injuries is something we’ll have to wait and see
I understand that the trade talk and other factors have hurt his popularity with some people on this sub, but after seeing people say they’d rather have Paolo, Chet, or Evan Mobley over Giannis outright because of the reasons I mentioned above, it kinda hit me just how underrated he’s become. With all due respect to Evan Mobley, by the time Giannis was Mobley’s current age, he had already won an MVP, captained an All-Star team, and led his team to the best record in the NBA as the first option.
Imo, theres probably a 99% chance none of those guys ever reach the level Giannis is at right now, and there’s also a very high chance Giannis is still better than all three of them over the next 3-4 years. Giannis (and Luka for that matter) could very easily have been the best player in that Spurs OKC series we just saw, they’re that good.
Myles Turner recently called out his Bucks teammates including Giannis Antetokounmpo for being late. Bobby Portis responded on another podcast 'Run It Back':
“I thought it was AI.”
“If you play in the NBA, or any professional sport, superstar players get treated differently. Not saying my guy was 2 and a half hours late, that’s an overexaggeration.”
They then suggested it was probably 15 minutes which Bobby agreed with, before asking Bobby what Myles meant by 'late', Bobby said:
“It wasn’t no two hours, I have never been on a team where somebody was 2 hours late. I think that was overexaggerated.”
DeMarcus Cousins then added:
“I thought that was bogus from Myles.”
“Milwaukee not even that damn big.”
Bobby Portis followed up:
“There ain’t even that much traffic out there, I can get from my crib all the way in the suburb to the airport in 20 minutes.”
“Myles was bogus for that.”
“I ain’t like that at all.”
Source: Run It Back with Chandler Parsons, Michelle Beadle, Lou Williams, and DeMarcus Cousins