Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the NBA’s brightest young stars, and it’s for all the right reasons. Antetokounmpo’s on-court prowess speaks for itself. He’s putting up absurd numbers to go with incredible highlights each and every night, and off the court, his fun-loving personality makes him an easy player to root for. He’s got the total NBA star package, with the endorsement deals to prove it.
What we know about Antetokounmpo made the footage that went viral on Sunday morning of him threatening an assistant coach a bizarre watch. At one point during the Milwaukee Bucks’ 108-121 loss to the Utah Jazz, cameras caught Antetokounmpo telling assistant coach Sean Sweeney “I’ll f*ck you up.” What we don’t know is what they were fighting about or what Sweeney said back to him. It was a heated exchange, if nothing else.
The footage isn’t that bad in the pantheon of bad things. Players and coaches argue all the time, and while this particular argument got more heated than a lot of them do, the most interesting factor here is that Giannis was the culprit. It’s just a different side of him we don’t usually see, but losing the third game of your last four when you’re a team with deep playoff aspirations will do that to you. The Bucks are on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, and while there is certainly a lot of basketball to be played, they are underperforming and clearly frustrated.
After practice on Sunday, Antetokounmpo all but confirmed that his tiff with Sweeney was nothing more than a heat-of-the-moment mistake. The Bucks shared a clip of his post-practice presser where Giannis said, “That’s what we do. We fight. We argue. At the end of the day, we both want to win.”
"That's what we do. We fight. We argue. At the end of the day we both want to win."@Giannis_An34 on his relationship with Coach Sweeney pic.twitter.com/uNlJ4XQaw8
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) November 26, 2017
Antetokounmpo also mentioned how he and Sweeney get frustrated with each other all the time, but they also work with each other all the time, and nobody in the organization wants to win as much as they do. That conflict comes from a place of extreme competitiveness, which is kind of what everyone thought in the first place. Antetokounmpo ended his presses with a statement everyone can agree on. The Bucks play the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday, and if this cloud of frustration is going to go away, they need a win there.
