3 things Giannis Antetokounmpo must do to become a top-5 NBA player of all time
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo took a major leap forward in his career after claiming his first NBA title and being named as the Finals MVP last month. A 50-point performance in the clinching game of the 2021 NBA Finals opened the eyes of fans and critics as to how good Antetokounmpo has become.
After eight seasons, Giannis Antetokounmpo stands atop the NBA with two of the most prestigious trophies in hand, the Larry O’Brien Trophy and the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award. Add these to his list of accomplishments and you have a player who could end up as one of the top 5 NBA players of all time.
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s accomplishments
Before we assess what Giannis Antetokounmpo has to do to become one of the five best players ever, let’s look at what he has accomplished so far in his career.
1x NBA champion
1x Finals MVP
1x Defensive Player of the Year
1x Most Improved Player
1x All-Star MVP
2x MVP
5x All-Star
5x All-NBA
4x All-Defensive team
2013-14 All-Rookie team
These awards and accomplishments are quite impressive. Very few players in the league have many of these on their resume and none of the top 10 NBA players of all time have a Most Improved Player Award like the Greek Freak does.
But to be a top five player of all time, Giannis Antetokounmpo has much to do. Just for purposes of this discussion, let’s consider who the top five players of all time are. In the opinion of most basketball pundits, these are the five players mentioned most often:
Michael Jordan
LeBron James
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Russell
Honorable mention: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Tim Duncan
What do these players have that Giannis doesn’t? That’s what we aim to find out. Forget about making his jump shots or making his free throws because Chamberlain and Russell had neither, and they’re in the top five anyway.
3. He should break several records
For Giannis Antetokounmpo to be a true candidate for top five status, he has to break several records before his career ends. By breaking records, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is atop the leaderboard in the major statistical categories career-wise, but he should at least be in the top 10 in a few of them.
However, Giannis Antetokounmpo will need to be a record-breaker when it comes to his season-long trek through the league. He’s already accomplished more than a few of these including the aforementioned 50 points he scored in Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals. In doing so, he became the seventh player in league annals to record 50 points in the Finals and the first to have that many points with 10 rebounds, and five blocks in a Finals match.
These types of records and more will make Giannis Antetokounmpo foremost in the minds of critics, basketball pundits and the most knowledgeable fans in the game. If he does something remarkable and record-breaking or record-tying every season, he will have a career worth remembering.