Most NBA fans would say that Milwaukee Bucks All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo will be a Hall of Famer when all is said and done, but in case there was any doubt, the 30-year-old has already laid out a path for how his scoring could elevate his overall legacy.
Giannis posted 29 points in the Bucks’ 116-99 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night. A corner 3 in the third quarter made him the 42nd player to score at least 21,000 points in the NBA, and he was certainly proud of his latest accomplishment.
“I think when I was younger, a couple years ago, I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s another day at the office. Let me just do my job, go back home,'” Antetokounmpo said. “But as you get older, you start appreciating those moments. You don’t take it for granted,” Giannis told Eric Nehm of The Athletic.
“Coach Doc (Rivers) came in and he told me that there’s only like 11, 12 players who have ever scored 21,000 points with one team through the history of the game, and you’re like, ‘Wow.’ Being a kid from Greece — from Sepolia, where I grew up in a small neighborhood that not a lot of, let’s say, great things happen there or come out of there — to be able to be on this stage and 13 years later to score 21,000 points, I’m very appreciative.”
Giannis did not stop there. The nine-time All-Star also provided an optimistic timeline.
“I think to get to the top of the scoring list, it’s not six, seven, eight years away,” Antetokounmpo said. “I think, in my opinion, it’s four years away. Four, five years away, 4 1/2 years away.
“I think when I am going to be 35 years old and sitting in this chair, and we want to have a discussion of I am in the top list of all time in scoring, I would have talked that into existence. And not just talking it into existence because I believe that I’m going to do it. It’s something that I want to do.”
Giannis is the sixth-youngest player to score 21,000 points, and it sounds like he has his sights set on more.
