Giannis Antetokounmpo Gets Roasted Online For Poor Skills Challenge Performance: "Certified Non-Bucket Getter..."

Giannis Antetokounmpo is an absolutely unstoppable force on the basketball court. As a 6x All-Star, 2x MVP, and NBA Champion he has more than proved himself in the league.

Unfortunately, his greatness does not make him immune from the wrath of NBA Twitter.

During Saturday night's skills challenge, Giannis and his brothers formed a three-man crew that looked to pass a test of passing, dribbling, and shooting. The trio ended up doing so bad (they were the first team eliminated) that they got clowned by fans on Twitter.

The Harden reference some fans Tweeted dates back a few years now. Back in 2020, Harden threw some shade at the Greek Freak by saying his game requires "no skill."

"I wish I could just be 7 feet and run and dunk. That takes no skill at all," he told ESPN's Rachel Nichols. "I actually have to learn how to play basketball and have skill. I'll take that any day."

While it might be a stretch to say Giannis' game requires no skill at all, a case can be made that a guy like Harden and others (who do not have the luxury of being Giannis' size) have to develop more skills to be successful in the game.

The skills challenge, at least to some, illuminates Harden's point. Regardless, the blame cannot fall all on Giannis.

The Antetokounmpo brothers are among the NBA's most well-known and beloved families. They clearly have some talent and had some fun on Saturday, but it's no surprise that Alex and Thanasis had some trouble carrying their weight.

As for Antetokounmpo, he has never been known as a shooter, but he finds other ways to dominate the game. He knows how to use his body and size to get easy shots around the rim.

Sadly, he can't really use those to his advantage during the skills challenge.

Comments

From Deep: At long last, Nikola Jokic's Nuggets can envision getting to the top of the mountain

Jamal Murray tore his ACL on April 12, 2021. Leading up to that night, he'd been playing at an All-NBA level for two months: In a 25-game stretch, Murray averaged 24.1 points on .509/.459/.935 shooting splits, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists. He was even more efficient than he was in the bubble playoffs, and his defense had improved, too. Murray only got to play with Aaron Gordon, the Denver Nuggets' big trade-deadline addition, for five games. They won them all except the one in which Murray got injured. In 110 minutes, their new starting five scored slightly more efficiently than any iteration of the Kevin Durant-era death lineup in Golden State and defended like a top-five team. Two Nikola Jokic MVP awards later, Murray is back. So is Michael Porter Jr., who signed a five-year extension about a year ago and needed back surgery nine games into the 2020-21 season. The Nuggets remember how easily everything slid into place with Gordon in the mix. Newcomer Kentavious Caldwell-Pop...

Klay Thompson to sit out Warriors preseason games in Japan as Kerr says he needs more time to ramp-up

Klay Thompson may have returned healthy to the Golden State Warriors last season, but the scars from his two missed seasons are still quite visible. The Warriors played their first of two preseason games against the Washington Wizards on Friday and will play another on Sunday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said that Thompson will not be playing at all during the trip to Japan. "Just feel more comfortable giving him a little more of a ramp up," Kerr said before Friday's victory over Washington. "He's just not quite ready to play at this point just based on where, you know, we're so early in camp. We just want to be safe and make sure he gets a good ramp-up before he plays in games." Typically, so little time to ramp up wouldn't be a problem for a veteran in a preseason context. The games tend to be so low-impact and demand so few minutes out of a team's best players that they can safely jog through them. Stephen Curry and Draymond Green played 1...

LeBron James says he has 'no relationship' with Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It's not a matter of if LeBron James passes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the No. 1 spot on the NBA's all-time scoring list, it's when. James sits just 1,326 points away from passing the Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Lakers legend, a milestone that should happen at some point this season given James is still performing at peak levels and is coming off a year in which he averaged over 30 points a night. If he averages around the same amount of points as he did a season ago for the Lakers, James could break the record somewhere in the middle of the season, assuming he stays healthy. It's a highly anticipated moment heading into the season, but in regards to LeBron's thoughts about and his relationship with Abdul-Jabbar, he didn't have much to say on the matter. Following the Lakers first preseason game Monday night, a reporter asked James what his thoughts were on the Lakers legend and if the two had any relationship, to which LeBron gave a very short answer. "No...

Crossover World

Search This Blog