Giannis Antetokounmpo, consider your stats unpadded. In a shameless effort to record a triple-double in the dying moments of a 117-111 win against the Washington Wizards, Antetokounmpo intentionally missed an unguarded, wide open layup and grabbed the miss, seemingly giving the Bucks forward a triple-double. The audacity: astounding. NBA Twitter: abuzz. The rebound: fraudulent!
“The league has rescinded Giannis Antetokounmpo's 10th rebound last night–and thus his triple-double, sources tell ESPN,” Zach Lowe tweeted. “League rules say that for a field-goal attempt to count as official, the player has to shoot “with intent to score a field-goal” — i.e. to make the shot.”
While it's not uncommon for the NBA to issue stat corrections, rarely are they this prominent—or this funny. At a moment where a stat-padding moral panic has gripped NBA discourse, the Milwaukee Bucks star stat-padded so brazenly that the NBA had to intercede—the official box score from last night's game now shows that Giannis Antetokounmpo only grabbed nine rebounds.
Funnily enough, Antetokounmpo's own admission to missing on purpose arguably cost him his 35th career triple-double, providing the NBA with the cold, hard evidence that his shot attempt was not a legitimate one.
“I was thinking about scoring the ball, but I feel like in those situations it's best to kind of keep the ball,” Antetokounmpo said after the game. “But yeah, I just try to play the game smart and kind of stole one.”
While the tactlessness of Antetokounmpo's triple-double hunt is hilarious, the NBA has a surprisingly long history of stat grifting. Most famously, Ricky Davis intentionally missed a layup on his own basket to try to steal a triple-double.
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