(Original text/Mao San)
Antetokounmpo's new season is galloping like a deer king who is thriving with joy, with only the happy wind left in his ears.
first three games, 37+13+3+3 steals, 34+8+8+3 steals, 44+4+8+ won the victory, and he played happily.
made 17 of 23 shots in the third game, scoring 44 points was his career high; 115 points in the first three games were the only one in the history of the Bucks , which was the only one in the history of the Bucks . In the 1972-73 season, the historical scoring champion of NBA scored 117 points in the first three games; the scores exceeded 30+ in the first three games. Who was the last Bucks player to do it? That was the young gentleman who could fly and deduct it in the 2001-02 season...
back to the second game, Cavaliers VS Bucks. The Cavalier's Jay Claude stood on the field, feeling like he was back in the past in a trance. In those years, he served as the core of wing defense for the Celtics and grew into one of the best 3D players in the league, but when facing LeBron- James , the results were often the same:
was completely exploded.
Although he has never crawled on the ground like Demar DeRozan and said "If I had James, I could win", Claude praised James not much: "His size is so tall and strong, but I feel that the most difficult part is to limit what he has to do. He can use multiple ways to hit your team."
Now Claude, who transfers to the Cavaliers, no longer needs to take on the heavy responsibility of defending James in the TV broadcast screen, but James is not the only one who can give him the same feeling in this league.
So when Giannis Antetokounmpo knocks him out for a layup, or sends a large diagonal pass in front of him to help his teammates make an open three-pointer, Claude must be in a very complicated mood.
"Why is this kind of thing not over yet?"
His idea is not too big a problem. Antetokounmpo is no longer as weak as he first entered the league at the age of 19. His weight has risen from 180 pounds to more than 200 pounds. In terms of confrontation, he is indeed very close to LeBron level, but his weight can be eaten, but he cannot make up for his height. His height has grown from 2.06 to 2.11 meters, and his arm span is even 10 cm longer. His body changes are as violent as Akira Kiro in recent years. The key is that pure original ecology does not drive the knife. This talent of continuous increase in capacity after entering the league does not affect the agility speed bounce. In the league, only Kevin Durant can compare with it. There is another small thing that LeBron can't learn. Antetokounmpo's palm length is 30.5 cm. For comparison, Kawhi Leonard, known for his large hands, has a hand length of 28.6 cm, a basketball has a diameter of about 25 cm, LeBron's palm length is 23.5 cm, and Liuyan D cup size is only 17.5 cm.
So in terms of posture, if James can leave the impression of "too tall and too strong" on Claude, then Antetokounmpo left only two words to describe the feeling of most defensive players in the league:
"freak".
This is also the most widely circulated nickname in Antetokounmpo in addition to the nickname "Antetokounmpo" (The Alphabet) that is well-known to Chinese fans: "The Greek Freak".
As a second-generation immigrant born in Greece, Nigerian , Antetokounmpo grew up in an environment that is not much better than those children who grew up in slums in the United States. The parents have no jobs, and the family is both black households. They have neither Nigerian nor Greek identity. He can only go out with his brother to practice stalls and sell small items such as the LU famous Baobao Shi Ming sunglasses to tourists. Antetokounmpo, who did not start picking up basketball until 2007, quickly became the future of Greek basketball. How quickly was it?
Antetokounmpo just played in the European Division II League for a year, and the Greek government immediately gave him Greek nationality, because without that certificate, Antetokounmpo would not be able to participate in any national team, nor any European Division I league, and even traveling.
But now, Antetokounmpo can choose his own life. He even refused the call for the Greek national team in the European Cup on the grounds that "I want to strengthen training and improve myself in the summer". Perhaps this is the freedom brought by a four-year, $100 million contract. But this matter is not necessarily just about money, because we have seen too many people who have been confirmed since birth, and after getting a big contract, they may not be able or dare to put personal interests above the country.
In any case, Antetokounmpo successfully brought his talent to the NBA. In his fifth season of his career, he scored 37 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals in the opening game. He also gave the final three-point assist to the outside Delavidova at the last moment, leading the team to defeat the Celtics. At this time, he was just 22 years old and 316 days old. The last player who scored at least 35 points and 10 rebounds in the opening game and was younger than Antetokounmpo, was counted until 1993 O'Neal.
Then came the second game. Facing Claude or James and the whole world, Antetokounmpo scored 34 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and 1 block, with only 2 mistakes. As praise comes, people suddenly begin to understand that Kobe Bryant's behavior on Twitter in the summer is not just as simple as treating himself as an NPC randomly dispatching copy task, but is indeed carefully considered. Kobe's mission goal for Antetokounmpo is:
"win the MVP."
is not an All-Star, not the best lineup, but an MVP.
In fact, Kobe may have Baidu Antetokounmpo’s remarks. In an interview before the season, the Greek Monster once hinted that he might get an MVP. At that time, the reporter wanted to ask him how he could make progress in the new season: "You can't win the fastest-progress player award for two consecutive years, right?"
Antetokounmpo's answer: "Why can't it? If I win the MVP, I will be the fastest-progress player (MIP). " Although
MVP wins the MIP, it sounds good logically, but this is something that will never happen. What we should expect may be another logic: I hope the MIP curse will not hinder him from getting the MVP.
Because no one has been elected since the MIP award was established in the 1985-86 season.
Even though Antetokounmpo's ambitions were exposed and Kobe was fueled, Antetokounmpo's goals have not been paid enough attention to. After all, we have seen too many data monsters in the past few years, including Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and LeBron, who has always been in the top four of the MVP votes for many years.
The level of performance that the Cavaliers played has allowed Antetokounmpo to use MVP to surface again. After the game, LeBron immediately praised Antetokounmpo: "If he is either great, he is on the road to greatness." Bucks head coach Jason Kidd made his usual pretending to be deep: "I won't say that Antetokounmpo is LeBron, but their level at the age of 22 is relatively close."
said Antetokounmpo is like 22-year-old James, both humble and full of affection. Kidd first reminds people to remember that the Greek monster under me has played at this level, but he is only 22 years old; more importantly, what is the level of 22-year-old James?
2006-07 season, the 22-year-old young LeBron led the Cavaliers with a single core and already had miracles such as the Wizards who scored 25 in a row to split the Pistons. After reaching the finals, he won the honor of Duncan teacher selected for the future.
And 22-year-old Antetokounmpo, before that, had only had two experiences in the first round of the playoffs, and had not truly proved himself on the big stage.
And on the real technical level, the two are actually different. Although LeBron is often called a big control, he has actually never served as a point guard in official statistics for 14 years in the industry. Instead, he served as shooting guard for a long time in his rookie season. Over the years since then, LeBron has spent most of his time at the small forward position. Except for Miami's last two years, he has been in the power forward position for more than 80%.
When Antetokounmpo entered the industry, he was indeed a standard small forward, occasionally swinging to the power forward position. The second year he spent part of his time playing shooting guard, but he still lived in the small forward position about half of his time. In the third year, he made great achievements, allowing Antetokounmpo to play point guard 40% and score 60% and the shooting guard 60% and various human tests in the interior, which directly caused the Bucks to fall out of the playoffs. Then last season, after Kieruji was injured, he finally learned from his mistakes and announced the end of the test, which still allowed Antetokounmpo to return to the small forward position.
Although she played in the backcourt for two years, in addition to her on-the-spot experience, ball possession, and vision, Antetokounmpo still looks very different from the familiar LeBron: in the past four seasons, Antetokounmpo's shooting ratio has never exceeded 35%, while in the first ten years of LeBron's entry, the shooting ratio in this area has never been less than 40%. However, in the last season, I was talking about the youthful crazy, and LeBron hit the basket more, but still maintained a proportion of mid- and long-distance shooting ratio of more than 30%.
In addition, when the two pass abilities are similar in the fast break, Antetokounmpo's assists in the positional battle are only half of LeBron, and his ability to misalign attacks is not as sharp as LeBron. You often see Antetokounmpo's stopping the ball when he gets the opportunity to play a singles small defender within the free throw line, so from the offensive end, the two are not much comparable.
But this does not mean that Antetokounmpo must develop in the direction of LeBron, which is the legendary development of his own peripheral shooting ability. Maybe at the beginning we always hope that a person can do this or that, but in the end, we often sigh that if he can concentrate on doing something to the extreme.
Antetokounmpo is no exception. If you can develop a mid- and long-range shooting efficiency at the Durant level, then you will naturally be more skilled, but if you forcefully increase the change in your playing style, it will reduce efficiency. Even if you become a shooting player at the level of Carmelo Anthony level, the scoring efficiency at mid- and long distances will still be a drag on the overall scoring efficiency.
So for Antetokounmpo, his biggest advantage is still in the transformation, and he is still taking one step at a time, Guo Jingming's super pace, still in his vision and defense. As for other things, you can really take it slowly. Just like he will have the upper hand in the data competition, but will still be poked by LeBron in the game, and will still lose to a strong team like the Cavaliers. As his personal ability improves, the defensive intensity he faces in the playoffs will also increase. It is still unknown whether his steps are big enough to cross the future.
Fortunately, if the MVP does not talk about the playoffs, the inertial thinking will always be changed by data with enough impact. In the face of amazing enough data, even the record is becoming less important. Last year, Westbrook led the team with only the tenth in the league, and he was still able to cry in front of everyone. However, only two people in the NBA have been able to win this honor with the sixth record. One is called Jordan , and the other is Moses Malone. This shows that the times are changing dramatically and the data explosion is strong enough to break the MVP award. It is the traditional convention of "the best player in the best team. If there are a few equal players in the best team, then it depends on the second best team, and so on."
Furthermore, if Antetokounmpo continues to play like this, the Bucks' record may not be lower than last year's Thunder. Just after playing against the Cavaliers, facing the Trail Blazers back to back, the Bucks won the victory, Antetokounmpo's data was once again hit, with a career-high 44 points, and 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 1 block that filled the data sheet. What is more important is the way to win.
0 17 points in the last quarter, and with 30 seconds left in the game, the Bucks were still 1 point behind. Antetokounmyeon directly intercepted Damian Lillard, causing a foul, but lost both free throws.
During the suspension period, Antetokounmpo was extremely frustrated and kept slamming his head with both fists. If the game ends here, we will feel a little relieved about our slow response to the possible "letter season":
" is still young after all."
But Antetokounmpo, who then stood on the court, proved with his actual performance that everything just happened was just a more sufficient foreplay before the climax. He implemented an inhumane death entanglement against another backcourt star of the Trail Blazers CJ McCollum in the following defense.
resulted in a successful steal, and a quick dunk to be sure to kill.
What's more terrifying is that the game is here to end There was no end. 11 seconds was enough for the Blazers to save the game. After a successful tactical cooperation, Yusef Nurkic got the ball at the basket. This was a great opportunity to fight the final shot, but Antetokounmpo appeared in the sky again.
This blood cap was too ruthless.
And just like Bill Russell said: "A real good block is to turn defense into a fast attack. "
The ball was blocked or returned to the hands of the Bucks players. The Trail Blazers had no choice but to foul, and the game ended here.
So what we saw was Antetokounmpo, who was good at both offense and defense. He was able to dominate the critical moments of the game at both offense and defense while so impressive. The previous one was Leonard, and Durant, who is working hard to develop in this direction recently.
These two, especially the former, have a high position in the offseason MVP prediction.
Of course, Antetokounmpo still needs more game samples to consolidate his MVP prospects. After all, as strong as LeBron, he will not be able to get his first MVP until he was 24 years old.
