Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton are the two best players on a Milwaukee Bucks team that owns the best record in the NBA. Now, the two are All-Star teammates, but it hasn't always been that way.
Back in Antetokounmpo's early days, when he was still fighting for minutes on a mediocre Bucks team, Middleton stood in his way, and Antetokounmpo has rather vivid memories of how practice used to be for the two players:
“You cannot imagine how hard we went at each other at practice,” Antetokounmpo said, according to Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “Like, I went home and when my family came, I was showing them the scratches I had on my arms. He used to come down and I’d grab him hard. And he’d push me off. I used to hate him. You know: ‘(Expletive) this (expletive). I’m going to take his (expletive) minutes.’ I hated playing against him and practicing against him because he was playing hard. And I was playing hard. And we’d always clash at each other.”
While Middleton's description of the practice battles between the two was not as profanity-laced, it still painted a picture of the same theme:
“We hated each other on the court because we were fighting for minutes,” Middleton said. “Me and him were kind of in the same position. It was a battle every day in practice. We were making each other better, but we were really trying to get into that rotation and start playing.”
Now, here they are, in 2019, getting set to play in the All-Star Game.
What a ride it has been for the duo.
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