Giannis Antetokounmpo once again addresses ongoing trade rumors

• Giannis Antetokounmpo stated he is not involved in any trade discussions and remains focused on his health and team.
• Antetokounmpo acknowledged the ongoing trade rumors but said they do not affect his work or relationships with teammates and coaches.
• Antetokounmpo expressed a desire for the rumors to stop, as they take a mental toll on him, his family and his teammates.

Speaking for the first time since Nov. 29, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo fielded questions from a small group of reporters at the team’s practice facility before the team’s game against Toronto on Dec. 18.

After answering a few questions about his rehab from a calf strain suffered Dec. 3, Antetokounmpo talked about the ongoing rumors regarding his contentment with and commitment to the Bucks.

Here is a transcript of that roughly 24-minute question-and-answer session, lightly edited for clarity:

Q: Before you got hurt, there was a report Dec. 3 about you and your agent talking to the Bucks about your future and whether or not you wanted to be here or not. What did you make of that report?

Antetokounmpo: I didn’t hear about the report. Again, if my agent is talking to the Bucks about it, he is his own person. He can have any conversation he wants about it. At the end of the day, I don’t work for my agent, my agent works for me. And there’s going to be conversations that are going to be made between him and the Bucks and him and his other players and him and other teams and other GMs, executives around the league. It’s something that you can’t control. But, at the end of the day, I personally have not had the conversation with the Bucks. I’m still locked in, locked in on my teammates.

Most importantly, locked in on me getting back healthy. And then locked on my teammates and how can I help them from the sideline or encourage them to be able to play and play free. Because at the end of the day, it takes a toll on them too, right? They’re playing game after game after game. Thank God, we’ve had a very good schedule in the last couple of weeks, but it takes a toll on them too. Like rumors and that and in and out, injuries and lose, win, it’s hard, right? So, as a leader, but most importantly as a winner, you just gotta be there for them first. So, right now again, I’m just focused on getting back healthy on the court, focusing on how can I encourage my team to be the best version of themselves. After that, focus on how can I go out there and help them win games and get out of this hole that we’ve dug ourselves in and then everything else come after that.”

When you spoke about a trade report on Oct. 8, you came down and said, I hope this ends it. But it didn’t end it. It’s carried into the season…

Antetokounmpo: Which I appreciate, right? This is the most I’ve been ever talked about in my career. I’m in my house with my kids and all that and I’m opening the TV and it’s like, “Oh, Giannis is going to the Memphis Grizzlies!” Or, “Giannis is going to the Detroit Pistons!” Which, hey man, I’m not going to lie, I’m the hottest chick in the game right now. (laughs) No, I’m joking.”

But now your teammates, coaches have had to answer for this. That’s different. Are you bothered by that?

Antetokounmpo: No. No. It doesn’t affect my work. It doesn’t affect my work, it doesn’t affect my relationship with my teammates, it doesn’t affect my relationship, most importantly, with my coach. It doesn’t affect my relationship with the GM. So, it doesn’t really bother me because they know what I’m about. Everybody that talks about me they really don’t know me. If they know me they’d probably call me, text me, talk to me about it before they say something that they believe. But, people that know me, know we’ve had conversations, I’ve had conversations with my coach, I’ve had conversations with my GM. I’ve had conversations with my guys in the locker room.

So I’m just staying locked in and I’m just saying the same thing. Like, we cannot be worried about what the rumors are. Talk about rumors and headlines and which, hey, I appreciate. I know you guys are in media, I appreciate all this. It’s part of the game, but at the end of the day we’re fighting for our lives. Like, we gotta win a game. So, rumors won’t help us win a game. Or, you know, anything else. We just gotta focus on basketball. How can we be better? How can we learn how to win a game? Like, what it takes to win a game. Because I don’t think anybody in this locker room or in this organization don’t want to win games. We gotta figure out how to win games, learn how to win games. We’re winners, man. We gotta give more to the game. Like, dig deeper right now. Because I don’t know in the last 12 games we’ve won three? Two? I don’t really know.

So, this is not who we are. And our character right now is being tested and we just gotta find our identity. And what our identity is going to be. Are you gonna be quitters? Are you just going to quit and go the other way and start playing “me” basketball and not move the ball or are we going to be together? Are we going to go and have more team events, have dinners together, in the locker room spend more time together, in the game when somebody falls on the floor go pick him up, if someone misses a shot encourage him, when you have the ball you have a good shot move the ball to the next guy for a great shot. All those little things add up. Right now our character is being tested. Who are we? Who do you want to be? This is how you build your identity. Who do you want to be?

And right now, me personally, I don’t want to be the guy that I’m worrying about rumors. Like, which maybe not, but my legacy is on the line. This is how I feel every single day when I walk in here. Every single day I go out there and I’m not able to help my team win I feel like I’m being tested. So when I’m being tested everybody goes back to what they know best. And what I know best is to work hard. It doesn’t matter if I’m 38 years old, 31 years old, 22 years old, I go back to what I know best. And, you know, for me, it’s work hard.

For other people, I don’t know what you like to do, you might go and smoke a cigar. Eric over here might want to go and smoke, smoke, drink an old fashioned, you know what I’m saying? I don’t know what he [likes]. But I know I go back to what I know the best: compete and play like my life is on the line. And that’s what we gotta do. That’s who we are.”

You mentioned talking to your teammates, reports of meetings, no meetings, how did you address and assure them you’re here with them?

Antetokounmpo: First of all, I’m never going to have a meeting with my teammates and sit everybody down and talk about like, hey guys, hey, if we don’t win I’m gonna get out of here. Like, c’mon. We’re grown ass men. That’s not gonna happen. They’re grown, too. I think they understand the deal. You just gotta give urgency to the team. Like, guys, this is like serious. Who are we trying to be? We gotta turn this around. We have time to turn this around. And you gotta have a little bit more urgency. I think I’ve had the conversation with the coach about it, I think I’ve had the conversation with individual players about it. I’ve been approached by teammates and asked about the rumors because it also may affect their own life and their own career. I’m straight with them, whatever that answer might be.

Like, the other day I was approached, hey, you deleted all the Bucks stuff from your social (media). I’m like bro, the young generation they just pay attention to so much. Like, what does that mean? What does it mean, deleting the Bucks stuff from the social media platform? What does that mean? I’m not going to show up to work? I don’t understand. People give so much attention to that. I told him, my intention was not to; first of all I did not delete the Bucks stuff. My Jimmy Paschke shirt, championship trophy is there, the NBA Cup trophy is there, all the moments that mean something to me is there, but I wanted to be more private moving forward, as much as I can. I want to be a little bit more private. That’s how I protect my family.

You mentioned your agents are adults and can talk to whoever, but they do work for you. Is this a situation where you don’t want private or regular conversations to get out – somewhere in the communication line it’s getting out. You can kind of control some of that stuff if they do work for you.

Antetokounmpo: Listen. At the end of the day, like I tell my wife all the time, I say like, “stop going shopping to Target.” Every day she wakes up she’s like, I’m going to Target. I’m like babe, stop, you’re addicted to Target. And she, even today she went to Target. Like, I can’t control her. She’s a grown ass woman. I can’t control what she does. So, the same thing with my agent. I can’t control the conversations they’re gonna have. I can’t control the people that approach them. And at the same time, I can’t control teams that approach the Bucks. I’ve seen, you guys have told me, that the Bucks have said “we are not trading Giannis.” Still, probably teams still reach out to them. So you can’t really control other people’s actions, right?

For me, when the season start this is my routine. I focus on my body and I focus on my game. And my family. You can ask my agent, and the people that know me, been around me. When the season start, there’s nothing more important than basketball. Nothing. Zero. Nothing. Nothing. Zero. OK, take my kids away and my wife and my mom. But nothing else. So, I don’t have conversations. I’m not that kind of, I’m not at that level. Which, maybe when I was younger I had conversations every single day with an agent. A lot of people have a great relationship with their agents. With me, I do have a good relationship with my agent but they know that once the season start, you don’t call my phone. You don’t talk to me about endorsement deals, you don’t talk to me about basketball. You never played the game, let me take care of my job, you take care of your job. And the conversations that is made by people that represent me, it’s up to them. It’s not up to me. I can’t control that.

You’ve addressed these questions about four times, regarding rumors of your future. Would you like this to be it? Or are you resigned to the fact these questions will persist?

Antetokounmpo: Do I hope it ends? For sure. Do I think it’s going to end? No. I think when people see cracks, they see opportunity to get in through those cracks. And I understand it. It’s part of the game. It’s part of winning. You’ve got to make the right moves to create the best chance for your organization to compete and win a championship. So I get it.

If I was on the other side, and I was an executive, I would probably do the same thing. Eventually you’re going to break. We’re going to keep on calling you, and if the team is not doing well or is not performing in the standards the way you guys think it should, we’re going to keep on calling until you say, “OK, let’s get it done.” That’s how it works, you know, in business. That’s what I do in business. So I just got to be consistent, applying pressure consistently, and eventually someone’s going to break and gonna kind of give in to what you want.

Do I hope it stops? 1,000%. Because it takes a toll on me, too, mentally, and on my family. My wife sees it. My mom sees it. It’s like, “Oh, we’re going to, I don’t know, New Orleans?” No. That’s not happening. And it takes a toll on my teammates, which I don’t like, I really don’t like. But I understand part of media is to sell the story, right, creating a narrative so people can stay tuned in and keep on enjoying the NBA season and think of the possibility that Luka might come to the Bucks. Can you imagine that, you know, Luka (Dončić) might come to the Bucks? Probably the arena would be sold out, if they only feel believing the possibility that that might happen, right? I get why it’s happening, but I definitely hope it can just stop and just play basketball. I just want to play basketball.”

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