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Giannis Antetokounmpo was introspective following the Milwaukee Bucks season coming to an end in five games against the Miami Heat. Asked what happened to cause his Bucks to fall to the Heat in the first round, Antetokounmpo was candid in his response.

"They were playing to beat us and we were playing to win a championship", Antetokounmpo said. "We were a little bit ahead of ourselves, to be honest."

Antetokounmpo went on to say he doesn't consider the season to be a failure. He referenced that Michael Jordan lost more seasons than he won titles. The Bucks star also said everything is a step and that this first-round loss was another one of those steps.

Via Eric Nehm/The Athletic

"He referenced that Michael Jordan lost more seasons than he won titles."

MJ at home; "I took that personally"

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I'm sexy.” --Michael Jordan

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

I despise when people do this. He didn’t compare himself to MJ. A reported asked if he thought the season was a failure, GA simply stated that nobody considers MJs time with the Bulls a failure whenever they lost. He also spoke about how if the reporter didn’t meet all of his goals at his job, would he consider it a failure. His point was no, he doesn’t consider it a failure. Do I think it was a failure? Absolutely.

Demand out! With the new owner who’s a notorious cheapskate, the lack of draft capital and cap space this team is only going to get worse. Outside of Giannis everyone is aging past their primes and has little value on the trade market, nobody is trading young prime talent or draft picks for Lopez, Holliday or Middleton and if they don’t resign they’re free agents they’ll lose them for nothing making a trade even harder under the new CBA trade rules when you don’t have salary to match.

Blue_and_Whte wrote:

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

I despise when people do this. He didn’t compare himself to MJ. A reported asked if he thought the season was a failure, GA simply stated that nobody considers MJs time with the Bulls a failure whenever they lost. He also spoke about how if the reporter didn’t meet all of his goals at his job, would he consider it a failure. His point was no, he doesn’t consider it a failure. Do I think it was a failure? Absolutely.

This, that's why reading sports articles is a waste of your time. They take tidbits and leave out important context to push their own narrative. I have major respect for how Giannis handled that question.

Can't win a title in round 1 but you can lose one

good answer, better than saying " i was injured and they took advantage of that" he said we got humbled

Great answer Giannis. Who wouldn't want him on your team. Management DOES need to add another good piece to win another championship with the amount of competitive teams right now.

RipCityKJ wrote:Demand out! With the new owner who’s a notorious cheapskate, the lack of draft capital and cap space this team is only going to get worse. Outside of Giannis everyone is aging past their primes and has little value on the trade market, nobody is trading young prime talent or draft picks for Lopez, Holliday or Middleton and if they don’t resign they’re free agents they’ll lose them for nothing making a trade even harder under the new CBA trade rules when you don’t have salary to match.

Any team trading for Giannis will have to give up so much that winning in his new location will be just as improbable.

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

He's not...

Luke wrote:

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

He's not...

Some people just hear what's being said, not actually listening to what is being said.

Copium.

Statements like this are why this guy is a complete clown. Are you honestly trying to say you weren't trying to beat the Heat?

Pickled Prunes wrote:

RipCityKJ wrote:Demand out! With the new owner who’s a notorious cheapskate, the lack of draft capital and cap space this team is only going to get worse. Outside of Giannis everyone is aging past their primes and has little value on the trade market, nobody is trading young prime talent or draft picks for Lopez, Holliday or Middleton and if they don’t resign they’re free agents they’ll lose them for nothing making a trade even harder under the new CBA trade rules when you don’t have salary to match.

Any team trading for Giannis will have to give up so much that winning in his new location will be just as improbable.

You are most likely correct. The Gobert and Donovan Mitchell deals have set the market and look how much was dealt for him.

Bad optics here, its embarrassing to generally admit the heat wanted it more than you.

chilluminati wrote:

Blue_and_Whte wrote:

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

I despise when people do this. He didn’t compare himself to MJ. A reported asked if he thought the season was a failure, GA simply stated that nobody considers MJs time with the Bulls a failure whenever they lost. He also spoke about how if the reporter didn’t meet all of his goals at his job, would he consider it a failure. His point was no, he doesn’t consider it a failure. Do I think it was a failure? Absolutely.

This, that's why reading sports articles is a waste of your time. They take tidbits and leave out important context to push their own narrative. I have major respect for how Giannis handled that question.

Agreed. He seems like a smart guy with a balanced view of the world. Sports are about doing your best, being honorable, competing hard and team work. Winning is awesome but it's not what sports are about.

yellowknifer wrote:Agreed. He seems like a smart guy with a balanced view of the world. Sports are about doing your best, being honorable, competing hard and team work. Winning is awesome but it's not what sports are about.

Depends whom you ask. Some people hate losing, and only play to win.
And they don't play sport once they realize they aren't good enough anymore (or when they get old).

Blue_and_Whte wrote:

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

I despise when people do this. He didn’t compare himself to MJ. A reported asked if he thought the season was a failure, GA simply stated that nobody considers MJs time with the Bulls a failure whenever they lost. He also spoke about how if the reporter didn’t meet all of his goals at his job, would he consider it a failure. His point was no, he doesn’t consider it a failure. Do I think it was a failure? Absolutely.

Not technically correct. I’m sure MJ considered those seasons a failure.

Not to undermine your overall point, which makes sense.

Blue_and_Whte wrote:

cam24thomas wrote:LOL now he's comparing himself to Michael Jordan.

I despise when people do this. He didn’t compare himself to MJ. A reported asked if he thought the season was a failure, GA simply stated that nobody considers MJs time with the Bulls a failure whenever they lost. He also spoke about how if the reporter didn’t meet all of his goals at his job, would he consider it a failure. His point was no, he doesn’t consider it a failure. Do I think it was a failure? Absolutely.

Jordan absolutely considered many of the seasons he didn't win a title as a failure. Perhaps not the 1st ones, where he and the team were growing, but he was extremely frustrated and demanded more from everyone.

Really, the question and response are a bunch of semantic word salad. The question, was baiting / rhetorical. Obviously the Bucks failed to achieve their goals, and losing to the 8/1 was a gross disappointment, one of the biggest upsets in league history, and clearly a large failure relative to expectations.

Does that mean Giannis can't look at it as a learning experience? Of course not. We probably all should look at what we can learn from failure. There's nothing wrong with that, it's an extremely healthy attitude. That said, there was still obviously failure here. On a scale of 1-10 of playoff results vs expectations, this is probably 1 or a 2. Maybe it gets up to 2 just because Giannis was hurt.

And I don't care to criticize Giannis's word smithing in the moment or to his desire to not use the word failure, his examples and points don't really stand up to much scrutiny if you want to really analyze them, but he's up on a podium after a heartbreaking ending speaking off the cuff, and the words most of us say wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. His feeling, that I don't need to be depressed about this, but will do my best to learn from it, regardless of the inaccuracy of comparable examples, is a great attitude to have and commendable.