“People are going to build you up, and God are they going to, because when you’re great and new, we love you. Man, we’ll build you up into something that doesn’t even exist. You’re going to change the f*cking world. But you know what? Once they’ve built you as high as they possibly can, they’re gonna tear you back down – it’s the most predictable pattern.”
This is what Sonny Vaccaro (played by Matt Damon) told Michael Jordan in the movie Air.
Almost every modern superstar has experienced this pattern in some form. LeBron went from the Chosen One to public enemy number one after he took his talents to South Beach. Tiger Woods went from wonder kid to heathen after a series of injuries and poor decisions in his personal life.
“Critics like to build you up, tear you down, and then, if you’re lucky, build you up again.” – Spike Lee
Fortunately for LeBron and Tiger, they built themselves back up. LeBron brought a championship home to Cleveland, fundamentally altering the way the media would go on to cover him for the next decade. Tiger took the golf world by storm by winning the 2019 Masters, a feat that reframed his public perception for the rest of time.
But some athletes aren’t so lucky.
Some athletes get torn down by the media and permanently iced out of conversations. For Giannis Antetokounmpo, this fate was sealed long ago.
Historical Greatness
On Wednesday night, Giannis not only joined the 20,000-point club but became the sixth-youngest player ever to do so.
Only Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant got there quicker— all top-15 players of all time. When a reporter told him after the game that all the players in front of him went on to score 30,000 career points, Giannis responded without hesitation, “I’ll get there.”
https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1897508689743134940
If you were tuned into ESPN, though, you would have missed this historical milestone. That’s right. ESPN didn’t post about it— ONCE. Not on X, Instagram, or Facebook.
If you tuned into ESPN talk shows, you still wouldn’t have a clue. The morning after Giannis recorded this milestone, Brian Windhorst joined Stephen A. Smith on First Take. Surely, a polished NBA reporter like Windhorst would give an all-time great like Giannis some recognition, right?
Nope.
What, you may ask, was of utmost importance that Windhorst had an obligation to cover? An entire segment dedicated to him confessing that he should’ve cast an MVP vote for LeBron instead of Harden nearly a DECADE AGO.
Speaking of decades, let’s look at what Giannis has done in the last decade.
Nine All-Star appearances. Eight (soon to be nine) All-NBA appearances. Five All-Defensive Teams. Two MVPs. A DPOY. A Championship. A Finals MVP. He was also the youngest player (by nearly two years) to be named to the NBA 75th Anniversary Team.
He is in the midst of his seventh season averaging 27+ points and 11+ rebounds per game. That’s already as many as Kareem had in his entire career. Only Wilt Chamberlain had more, with eight.
He’s in the midst of his second consecutive season averaging 30+ points per game on 60% shooting. No other player has done this in NBA history. And his game is still developing.
In fact, he’s become one of the best mid-range players in the game. Giannis is one of only seven players who have made 100+ mid-range shots this season. Out of those seven, only Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander have a better FG% on mid-range attempts.
So, why haven’t we heard anything about it?
The goalpost keeps moving
A disturbing pattern has emerged in how national media covers Giannis and the Bucks.
When something terrific happens, downplay it or ignore it. How do they downplay it? By moving the goalpost onto the next accomplishment while downplaying the significance of the current accomplishment.
All-Star starter at 22 years old? Meh, go win an MVP. Oh, you got one? Well, how about another one and Defensive Player of the Year for fair measure? Oh, that’s cool, but it’s not really meaningful without a Championship. Oh, you won a ring at 26 years old while dropping 50 points in the closeout game of the NBA Finals? Cool, but you have a jumper?
What about when the Bucks are going through a rough stretch? That’s when ESPN (and others) go into attack mode.
Since 2016 (the year Giannis made his first All-Star game), ESPN, Bleacher Report, Yahoo, and others have attempted to drive Giannis out of Milwaukee. Using trade “rumors”, misquoting, manufacturing narratives, and even making up patent lies about Giannis’s desires, a myriad of reporters and “journalists” are guilty of media malpractice against the Bucks’ superstar.
This is all despite Giannis repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, declaring publicly, on many accounts, that he’d never demand a trade out of Milwaukee.
The national media sees Giannis as nothing more than a tool for projecting their desires when the opportunity arises. They use every injury-riddled postseason, every losing streak, and every quote taken out of context to further advance the fabricated narrative that Giannis is somehow unhappy in Milwaukee. This narrative only stands to benefit them, as a Giannis departure from a small market team would allow them to continue manufacturing false narratives, but in a more lucrative market.
And when the Bucks are winning? Complete and utter silence.
The Silent Treatment
Not only is the national media guilty of fabrication and lies, but something just as bad: omission.
They’ve collectively decided, especially over the last two seasons, to outright neglect reporting on the future Hall-of-Famers’ accomplishments. The omission of Giannis’s 20,000-point milestone the other night is just one of the many times that ESPN and others have failed to report on Antetokounmpo’s sheer dominance.
If analysts see Giannis as nothing more than a pawn and they only stand to benefit from the Bucks’ failures, they will refuse to cover Milwaukee’s successes. They’ll give lip service to his statistical dominance here and there, but nothing more.
Even Doc Rivers is sick of it. It’s far from normal for head coaches to speak out on behalf of their players regarding their media representation. But when omission became the standard practice for Giannis’s coverage (or lack thereof), Doc decided to break the silence.
It’s incredibly discouraging that a player’s own head coach needs to vouch for them in national media. It would be one thing if Giannis were having a down year. But Giannis is having anything but a down year. He was told for many years to develop a jump shot, and he’s done just that. He’s putting up Kevin Durant numbers from the mid-range on his way to averaging 30+ points on historical efficiency once again.
And yet it’s never enough. Because the national media doesn’t want to see Giannis succeed. They didn’t want to see him win back-to-back MVPs, and certainly didn’t want to see him win a Championship. It’s not a coincidence, then, that the only real recognition the Bucks received (aside from the NBA Cup) was during their horrendous 2-8 start, in which the same trite narratives arose.
Now that the Bucks are back to playing great basketball (they’ve won eight of their last nine games), radio silence has ensued. Because if it doesn’t support the “Giannis leaving Milwaukee” narrative, then why cover it at all? That’s been the prevailing attitude of national media, an attitude that needs to be called out with the same vitriol that it is espoused with.
But even if ESPN continues to neglect him (a very likely scenario), Bucks Nation will be shouting from the rooftops their praises for one of the best ever to step foot on the hardwood.
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