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Say what? Giannis can't keep contradicting himself and lead

The Milwaukee Bucks star is taking a more vocal approach but is it working?
Tony Mejia|
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Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo was livid that Charlotte Hornets forward Brandon Miller fouled him on a drive to the rim on Monday night that definitely looked like a clean block. 

We’re going to use the visual mediums available to us to illustrate this point. This is the play, which occurred early in the Bucks' eventual 123-113 win over Charlotte.

Antetokounmpo balked at the non-call immediately, which you can see in this wider view.

The "Greek Freak" really got after the officials at the subsequent timeout, which is well within his rights since he's a two-time MVP and should indeed feel entitled to superstar calls given that he plays NBA. So, it's without any shade that I'm showing Antetokounmpo doing exactly that here.

Antetokounmpo, back from a nearly-four week absence due to a calf injury, has hit the ground running on trying to lift the Bucks out of the rut they're in. He helped fuel Saturday's win in Chicago with his usual brilliance, but then sent out of a bat signal of sorts by discarding basketball etiquette in order to throw down a windmill dunk in the final seconds with the outcome already decided and no one standing between him and the rim on the other side of the floor.

Choir boys may not have liked it, but yeah, sure, get behind that. Giannis doesn't care about his opponents' feelings and doesn't want his teammates to have any regard for how they might feel about unnecessary last-second buckets either.

He's been preaching like your favorite hip pastor since returning, hoping that his guys get fired up because they need to join him in playing with passion. He wants them to buy in, throw caution to the wind and just hoop. Compete. With that in mind, complaining about that Miller block doesn't jive with the message he's conveying.

"When things don't go well, we can't whine, complain, demand for the ball, demand for the call, or demand for things to go well," Antetokounmpo said. "We haven't earned nothing. You have to go out there and earn every single possession and put yourself in position to be successful."

Giannis is saying an awful lot these days, but if he wants his teammates to not tune him out, he'd better continue with the equivalent of windmill dunks at the end of games. That's worth getting behind. Saying one thing and doing another is not.

To be fair, Antetokounmpo said "it starts with me" when needing to get out of his feelings. In saying a lot, he's putting in the qualifier, "as long as I'm here, as long as I'm healthy," when discussing his approach to constantly keep pumping his guys up.

That's how Giannis wants to play this. He wants to be the driving force for his Bucks. It would go a long way to provide assurances that he's going to be in Milwaukee for the long haul, because that's really what everyone wants to hear.

It's clear Antetokounmpo is stopping just short of that despite the NBA trade deadline being just up ahead. If he doesn't want to compromise his agent or paint himself into a corner by promising he's staying put and squashing all rumors for good -- which GM Jon Horst would undoubtedly appreciate -- Giannis can at least put everything else that's coming out of his mouth into practice.

Don't whine about calls. Play every possession to the final whistle. Dunk on teams for the fun of it. Be the bad guy. All that is worth embracing, but it would be a lot easier and more effective to motivate teammates by promising he's going to be there come March.

Sorry, "as long as I'm here," given all the rumors he's put Milwaukee through over the past year-plus, just doesn't sound reassuring or inspiring. It sounds like saying one thing about not whining about calls and doing the complete opposite. Miller's block was clean, by the way.

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Tony Mejia
TONY MEJIA

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