Giannis Antetokounmpo is the 2019 -2020 Defensive Player of the Year as announced on Tuesday. In a race that the media had tried to make seem neck and neck with Anthony Davis, Giannis eviscerated him with 75/100 first place votes. In almost every defensive stat, it was him, big gap, and then everyone else. For example, lets take opponent field goal percentage less than 6 feet from the rim (minimum 50 games played). Giannis led the league with 41.6%. AD has one at 49.8%, which would make him one of the most elite defensive players in the league. Giannis is just otherworldly this year.
The absolute insanity of Giannis this season is this, only winning DPOY would be a disappointment. He is the favorite to win MVP this year, which would mean back-to-back MVP's for the Freak. With that feat, he would join a list of 11 all time players who repeated. (Curry, LeBron 2x, Nash, Duncan, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem 2x, Wilt, and Bill Russell who won three straight). All Hall of Famers and only one who sticks out as not really belonging (Nash). This alone makes Giannis one of the greatest basketball players ever. However, if he wins MVP this year he will join an even shorter list of 4 players to win DPOY and MVP in their careers (KG, David Robinson, Hakeen, and Jordan). He will join an even shorter list of players to have won DPOY and MVP in the same season (Hakeem and Jordan). What we learn from this is that at 25, Giannis is (probably) about to do something that only the greatest basketball player ever and one of the greatest centers ever have done.
It would take an absolute insane person to try to argue that Giannis is not the best basketball player in the league right now. It would take an even more insaneperson to argue Giannis is not skilled. Some people, James Harden, have said Giannis is not a skill player, that it takes more skill for shorter, less athletic, less fast players to be good. Sure, it helps to be a 7 footer whose long strides and lanky arms means he can basically teleport into the lane, but it is not like he started dominating immediately in the league as a rookie. He came in the league at 19 and was ok. What seperates Giannis from others is his work ethic. Just look at a picture of Giannis as a rookie and one of him now, he is a different person. He worked his ass off to become one of the most skilled players in the league. His footwork is something he was not born with, it was a skill he crafted once he got into the league. His myriad of post moves and spins and gyro steps are not a natural ability he just knew from birth, it is a skill he spend years getting amazing at. He saw a flaw in his game last season with the three and worked on that last offseason and it shows. he went from 25% on 2.5 attempts last season to 30.4% on 4.7 attempts. For comparison, a certain NBA player is shooting 31% on 9 attempts and everyone is fine with that. The greatest thing about Giannis, in my opinion, is how consistent he is night in and night out. Even take the four playoff games he has played this year.
He is going to give you a 30/15/6 game in 31 minutes basically everytime. Hopefully Coach Bud frees up his leash against the Heat next series and we can see what he can do playing 35+ minutes a game.
What you should take away from this article, Giannis is doing what only some of the best players to ever play basketball have done, he worked extremely hard to get to this point and it is not just cause of his natural physical gifts, and to say that a player is 20 times more skilled than him should be legal precedent to lock you up in a mental hospital for the rest of time.
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