Arms and legs and hands and desire: Giannis Antetokounmpos early NBA days

These are the stories of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s first two years in the NBA, when he went from a mostly unknown Dave-&-Buster’s-loving rookie nicknamed “Bambi” to the future of the NBA.

Ross Geiger, assistant video coordinator: So, Dave & Buster’s. First of all, he would get a sugar high off a Coke or a lemonade. He’d be running around like all the other kids, bumping into kids at times. I was like, “Calm down, we’ll get to the machines.”

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Josh Oppenheimer, assistant coach: There was this childlike exuberance and innocence to him.

Geiger: We never really did anything that would require teamwork. He would always want to, in his words, “bust my ass.” He’d be like, “Let’s go over to the table hockey. I’ll bust your ass.”

Oppenheimer: What Giannis would do is he would learn a new phrase and then he would use it forever, in every context. Like, he could “bust your ass” at eating food.

Chris Wright, forward: There was one song that came out, and at the beginning they’d say, “Where they at doe?” Every time you’d see Giannis, no matter what was said, he’d say, “Where they at doe?” He would tap somebody and say, “Where they at doe,” and start laughing and running around.

Geiger: If I won the first game (at Dave & Buster’s), he’d be like, “No, no, no. Another one.” If we ran out of money on the card, he’d reach in his pocket and put $5 in and be like, “We’re playing this game right now.” He’d get into it. Almost cause a scene, yelling. Here’s this guy running around in these size-17 Air Force Ones and all Milwaukee Bucks gear who can’t wait to get to the next game.

Oppenheimer: Everything was just new to him.

Caron Butler, forward: He was learning in real time, right in front of you.

Geiger: I took him to a place called Castles N’ Coasters in Phoenix. He loved the machines that had the pop-outs where you had to hit the pop-outs really fast. Animals would pop out of the hole, and he’d have to hit them. He was really good at that because he didn’t have to move. He just stands in the middle and moves his arms. He liked those because he liked to get the tickets so he could get candy.

Robert Hackett, strength coach: He was a big kid.

Geiger: He just wanted to play video games, eat pizza and hang out.

Oppenheimer: Just … a kid.

Oppenheimer: I used to joke with him and call him Bambi. “Coach, what is Bambi? Who is Bambi?”

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Wright: When I first got there, some of the players were talking and one of the coaches said, “Yo, where’s Bambi?” I was like, “Who is Bambi?”

Oppenheimer: He was arms and legs and hands and desire. But that was it.

Wright: We start practicing and Giannis is out there just clumsy. Ah, that must be Bambi.

Geiger: He was like Bambi that year.

Wright: We were doing a defensive drill. It was a chop-it-up, closeout drill. He did the drill perfect, but when he went to get out of the drill, he tripped and stumbled. He’d say, “I’m good, baby.” That’s all he would say: “I’m good, baby.”

Butler: He wasn’t discouraged by anything.

Wright: Him in the weight room, bro, was so funny. Every time he’d do a couple curls, he would look in the mirror and flex.

Geiger: Trying to see if he was making gains.

Wright: He struggled doing pull-ups, probably because his arms are so long. One day, he knocked out a full set, and he was like, “Greek Freak, baby!” He was yelling and flexing in the mirror. It was hilarious, man.

Hackett: He’d just flex in the mirror, like, “Coach, look at this, it’s getting bigger!”

Wright: He was like, “Did I get bigger, bro?” I was like, “No, Giannis, you’re still the same.”

Butler: Look, I embarrassed the hell out of him one time as a rookie. We took him out, and he had no business being out at a nightspot. We had him doing pushups inside of a lounge  … I was like, “Hey, man, you’ve gotta do pushups.” He was just like, “Hey, that don’t bother me. I’m working, I’m getting better.”

Oppenheimer: He had this insatiable desire to get better.

Hackett: One day I was working with him — it was towards the end of his first year — and he said, “Coach, watch, next year I’m going to get better. Every year I get better.”

Oppenheimer: And he had unreal belief in himself — to the point that his rookie year it probably rubbed some veterans the wrong way. He thought he was going to be the guy. He always said that to me: “I’m going to be the man.”

Oppenheimer: One day in the summer we had a handful of guys and O.J. Mayo was there. I paired the guys up for shooting. I was like, “You’re with this guy, you’re with this guy, Giannis you’re with O.J.” So the guys break off. He just stands there. He looks at me. “Coach, which one is O.J.?”

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Geiger: He had no idea who any of these guys were.

Oppenheimer: We go to Tim Grgurich’s camp in Las Vegas. … We would go to the far basket every morning, and every morning Rick Carlisle would come and watch. It was just me and Giannis and we’d work on some stuff. Rick asked me, “Can I help? Can I talk to Giannis?” I was like, “Of course! You’re Rick Carlisle! Do what you want to do.” So Rick would work with him a little bit. Second day, same thing happened. Third day, same thing happened. Fourth day, we’re walking into the gym and Giannis goes, “Coach, let’s go to a different basket.” I said, “Why?” And he said, “That man is there again. I just want to work with you, coach, and every day, that man, he stops and talks to me. I like him, but I don’t want some man working with me.” I go, “Some man, Giannis?? That’s Rick Carlisle!” And he goes, “But who is Rick Carlisle?”

Geiger: The first time I took him to Walmart, he was like, “What’s Walmart?” I was like, “Well, that’s a good question.” … The first thing that he did, he saw the mobile carts for people. He goes, “I’m for sure using that.” I said, “Those are for people that need them, that have oxygen tanks or any kind of handicap. That’s what those are for.” And he goes, “Well, I need one. I had a long practice today!”

Hackett: I took him to Mayfair Mall. He tripped up because when he got to the food court, there were all the selections. I was like, “Giannis, you can get whatever you want.” He got some chicken burrito or something, and he couldn’t believe how cheap it was. And then he got a smoothie with it. He just loved the stuff.

Oppenheimer: We’re in Las Vegas, and we go to dinner at a buffet. … We walk in and I go, “I’m going to that table. You get what you want and I’ll meet you there.” Well, he comes to the table and his arms are long and his hands are huge. Between his arms and hands, he’s probably walking with six plates. I’m looking at him and he puts the plates down and looks at me: “Coach, what did I do wrong? Did I take too much?” I said, “No, Giannis, you can get as much as you want, but you don’t have to get it all at once.”

Geiger: When we moved him into his first apartment, I took him to Walmart. He was very, very … responsible with his money.

Oppenheimer: Giannis is cheap!

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Geiger: He wanted to buy Walmart pillows for like $3.97 rather than a nice pillow.

Oppenheimer: His first year he didn’t have direct deposit. He wanted the (physical) checks every two weeks. … Sometimes he would hold on to them, and then they would come to me: “Josh, he needs to cash this check, he needs to deposit this check, he just has it.”

Geiger: I taught him how to drive.

Oppenheimer: Ross was absolutely terrific with Giannis.

Geiger: He’s a quick learner with everything. He’s very competitive, and he’s a perfectionist. When I say he’s a competitor, he used to grade my parking job. Once I taught him how to park a vehicle, he’d get out of the car and be like, “That’s not a good parking job.” And then once he started driving us around, he’d be like, “See, I parked better than you.”

Hackett: When he first came in the parking lot, there was snow so everybody was like, “Man, don’t hit my car.” These guys have Mercedes and stuff out there. And here comes Giannis.

Geiger: I had a ’98 Subaru, so that’s what we drove around Milwaukee.

Oppenheimer: John Hammond would let him drive his car around the parking lot.

Geiger: I would tell him, “Hey, you’ve got to indicate or you need to slow down; there’s a yield sign.” We lived in St. Francis, so there wasn’t a ton of traffic at the time, and he’d get a little lazy. Every so often, I would do something wrong that I had told him he had to do, and he would start correcting me: “Hey, you didn’t do that!”

Oppenheimer: He has unbelievable confidence but also unbelievable humility. I think he has a great ability to be honest with himself about what he needs to improve at to reach the level he wants to reach.

Wright: He introduced himself to me — this was the funniest thing. I said, “What’s up, man? I’m Chris.” He goes, “I’m Giannis. The Greek Freak.” I was laughing like, “Who the hell is the Greek Freak?” He was like, “Me, baby, I’ll show you.” And he flexed.

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Oppenheimer: He would be on the bus and just start going, “I’m the fucking man, I’m the fucking man.” It was the phrase of the day.

Wright: That was just his mentality all the time.

Oppenheimer: We had Caron Butler, and he would go at Caron every day. Caron would traditionally get the best of him, but he was not going to back down.

Butler: He used to guard me all the time. I was like, “Bring your ass over here so I can bust your young ass. Come on.” He was just so relentless.

Oppenheimer: After he played in the rookie-sophomore game (during All-Star Weekend), he comes back. We’re just happy he played in the game. We’re just happy he got picked. He’s furious. I’m like, “What is the matter?” He’s like, “I have something for Nate McMillan.” I’m like, “What are you talking about? What did he do?” And he said, “He played me the least. He doesn’t think I’m good.”

Scott Williams, assistant coach: One of the things he used to have to do was make strings of free throws. You’d have to make nine in a row before you could leave the practice floor. Sometimes Giannis would get so frustrated, and we would be there for such a long time. You would think after 45 minutes or an hour, he’d be like, “OK, that’s enough for the day.” But he was determined.

Sean Sweeney, assistant coach: You could tell him, “Do this until I tell you to stop.” And he would do it.

Oppenheimer: I just always remember him looking at me or another coach with a serious look, and you can picture the use of his hands like, “Come on, give me the ball. We’re doing it again. I don’t need a fucking pep talk, I don’t need correction, let’s do it again.”

Wright: We were playing one-on-one and there were six spots to see who could get the most wins out of the six spots. There was one day where Giannis didn’t win a spot. He was pissed off, he was mad at us, he didn’t want to talk to nobody. He just left. We played again the next day, and he won all six spots. After that, he started running around the court, yelling, jumping on the scorer’s table, taking off his shirt.

Jane Gallop, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: I’m a pretty serious Bucks fan. This story wouldn’t exist if that were not true.

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Dick Blau, professor at UW-Milwaukee and Gallop’s partner: It was the first bitterly cold day of winter. It felt like it was 20 degrees. We were driving home, and we saw this lanky guy loping down the street.

Gallop: He was running and wearing a windbreaker. Like one of those little nylon windbreakers. I say to Dick, “Can we give him a ride? That’s Giannis.” He’s running in the street so we pulled up next to him, rolled down the car window and said, “Do you want a ride?” And he said, “Are you going to the Bradley Center?”

Blau: We got him into the backseat of our tiny car. It was incredible.

Gallop: The car we drove was a Honda Fit. They are very small. He climbed in the back seat of that car, and he was folded in some way that he fit there. He was like curled into the seat.

Blau: There are some Picasso drawings with women and their arms in impossible positions. It was kind of like that.

Gallop: So he gets in the car and we’re driving to the Bradley Center and I say to him, “You have to get a winter jacket!” That was my first response. And he said, “I don’t have any money, I sent all my money to my parents.”

Oppenheimer: His family wasn’t here with him, so he would Western Union money back to Greece. He goes to Western Union after shoot-around and sends money home. Well, he sent all his money, and he didn’t have a driver’s license yet or a car. He realized he had no way to get to the arena. So he ran.

Gallop: We get to the Bradley Center. He gets out of the back seat. I get out and shake his hand. I ask him for an autograph, and I asked him to give it to me both in English and in Greek. Then he said thank you and I said goodbye.

Blau: He was very, very sweet.

Oppenheimer: I’m pulling into the arena and get out. He’s getting out of this car and goes, “Hey, Coach!” I’m like, “Who is that?” He goes, “I don’t know. Oh, but they’re very nice,” and told me the story. I said, “Giannis. You can’t get into the car with people you don’t know!” But to him they were nice people.

Jay Namoc, equipment manager: There are a lot of sneaker stories.

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Oppenheimer: Jay comes into my office after practice and goes, “You’ve got to talk to Giannis.” I said, “What’s wrong? What’s the problem?” He goes, “Nike sent like 100 pairs of shoes for him.” And I said, “OK, so what’s the problem?” And he goes, “He wants to take them all home. He doesn’t want me to store them in the storeroom. He wants all of them.”

Namoc: I told Giannis, “With Nike, you’re allowed to get six to 12 pairs of shoes a month. Just let me know how many you’re going to go through a month and which ones you like.” He was like, “Order all of them. I want all of them.” I was like, “All right, which ones do you want to wear?” He was like, “I just want to wear this one. But I want all of them.”

Oppenheimer: He says, “Coach, they’re mine!” I said, “Giannis, you can wear a pair every day. They’re yours.” He said, “No, coach, that’s not it. I want to put them in my apartment and set them up everywhere.” I was like, “Set them up everywhere? There’s nowhere to set them up.”

Namoc: He wanted his closet to look like a Foot Locker.

Oppenheimer: He said, “I’m going to set them up like they do on ‘MTV Cribs.’” And he just started laughing.

Geiger: He would be like, “Ross, I’m going to pull up the car. I’ve got some stuff and then we’ll go.” I always knew that was shoe day…We’d put in this gigantic box filled with 12 to 15 shoes. We’d carry them up to his apartment. He’d drop the box in the middle of his living room, and he’d go through every box. He’d take them out of the box and look at them; they were the same shoe, same model, just different colors. He got so excited about it.

Namoc: To him, they were precious.

Oppenheimer: His rookie year, he wore like two pairs of shoes. Finally, the trainers were like, “He has to put a new pair of shoes on.”

Geiger: One of the coolest things Giannis ever did was after the Phoenix game. I was losing my father to cancer the year I was with Giannis. He knew I was going through a tough time. … He came over the night before the game and got to meet my family and everyone got to put a face to the name of this Bucks rookie that was always with me. My parents would call me: “What are you doing?” “I’m with Giannis.” “Where you at?” “I’m with Giannis.” Wherever I went, he went. He ended up giving my dad the shoes he wore that night. Well, the shoes he gave my dad he wore like 50 of the 82 games that season. I still have those shoes, and it’s funny. I just moved into a house and I was going through things, so I took a look at them again. There’s like little holes in the shoes and huge scuff marks.

Geiger: Just five or six years ago, we were walking down the streets of Milwaukee after a game and everyone couldn’t have cared less.

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Wright: I just love to see everything he’s doing now, man.

Sweeney: Greatness is not something you do one time. It’s what you do every single day. And that kid is great and shows his greatness by how he conducts himself all. the. time.

Oppenheimer: Last summer, he brought me to Milwaukee to train him for a few weeks. He picked me up at the hotel in the first car he bought. It’s a 2010 Tahoe.

Butler: Always working, always grinding, always staying true to the craft.

Oppenheimer: It wasn’t what everybody thought he could be or thought he wasn’t. It was him. It was what’s inside of him. And I think that’s what it’s always going to be.

(Illustration: Matthew Shipley)

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