Giannis Antetokounmpo Reveals He Had Access To A Hoop During Quarantine, Despite Comments

Bucks forward, and presumptive 2020 NBA MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo revealed after Tuesday’s practice in Orlando that he did in fact have access to a hoop during the months-long quarantine that the country went through earlier this year. This contradicts statements he made during the quarantine where he claimed that he had not picked up a basketball. Antetokounmpo admitted it was a strategic maneuver.”Anybody out there that thought I didn’t have access to a gym, they don’t even know me,” he said. “So, I just said that to try to get a little bit ahead of the competition.”

It was interesting to hear this admission especially in the context that many players said similar things during quarantine including Antetokounmpo’s teammate Khris Middleton told media earlier this month that he had not picked up a basketball for two to three months during his quarantine. Although it may be the case that some players weren’t able to get access to a gym during the quarantine, there have been many comments in the discussion surrounding the league that it is unlikely that any of these guys are telling the truth.

One of these comments came from New Orleans Pelicans guard J.J. Redick on the Bill Simmons‘ podcast when he claimed that any guy who didn’t workouts in for the majority of quarantine simply didn’t want to be in the gym, adding that he had been able to get into gyms even in a hot zone like New York where Redick lives.

I have been hearing a lot of comments saying to expect the first few weeks of the return to basketball to be poor quality, but I’m starting to be skeptical that that will be the case. It appears like most of the NBA’s players have been able to get into a gym sometime during April, after a month or so layoff, and have had a whole month to ramp up with full practices down in Orlando. There will likely be little action in this upcoming week’s scrimmages since teams will want to ramp back up slowly, but I have a lot more optimism that the product will be just as good if not better.