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The defeat highlighted the brilliance of Doncic, whom the former champion with the Milwaukee Bucks placed among the finest offensive talents. “When you have a guy like Luka, obviously, he’s one of the best scorers to ever play this game, if not the best,” he mentioned. “I feel like some people are scared to say that, but he’s got to be up there. He’s also an elite passer.” “I try not to follow the race and stuff like that and try to focus on what I can do and my team, and how can we be better,” Giannis added, answering a question about his fellow his fellow European’s MVP cases over the years. “Is he an MVP-caliber player? I think, no doubt he’s been up there. He’s definitely up there this year.”
Starting a five-game road trip with a loss to Luka Doncic and the Los Angeles Lakers at crypto.com Arena on Monday, Giannis Antetokounmpo called for more individual pride and accountability across the Miami Heat. “Not playing hard enough. We got to play hard,” he was blunt about his squad’s lack of effort and defensive chemistry to start his postgame media session. “We got to have some pride, individual pride, first of all. And then we got to keep one another accountable, but trust one another defensively. Right now, we don’t trust one another.”
“The rule for me, I don’t necessarily care about the rule,” he said of the 65-game award mandate. “What I care about is to try to have the healthiest season that I can have, right? “If that’s to play 65 games, so be it. If that’s to play 75 games, so be it.”
“I don’t want to just stop at your 65th game,” Antetokounmpo said to the Sun Sentinel in a private moment, with the Heat opening their five-game western swing Monday night against the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena. “Last year was the first time I played in my career that I played so few games, and it was something I did not like. I did not like sitting and watching the games. I love being out there, I love competing.”
NBA Communications: Other nominees... West: Darius Acuff Jr. (SAC), Stephen Curry (GSW), Luka Dončić (LAL) and Cooper Flagg (DAL) East: Giannis Antetokounmpo (MIA), Scottie Barnes (TOR), Tyrese Maxey (PHI) and Evan Mobley (CLE)
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Channing Frye: "Why is Channing such a Luka hater? No, I love Luka Doncic. I love Luka. I just don't think the way he plays basketball is going to win a championship. That's it. That's it. I think Luka is a lot like James Harden. I think both of those guys' games are amazing, but their usage rate is not equating to championships. Who plays like that? Who's played like that and shown you that they can win a championship? I wait. Right? Think about maybe the last person who did, the last person who did was Giannis, and that was 2021, right? 21. So five, six years ago. And now, look, like it's not sustainable. The usage rate is too much. What's going to happen? Like Luka is great. He's not winning you a championship like that, because guess what, the other best team has five guys that are going to average 15 to 20 points. Luka has to feed his whole team other than Austin Reeves. That's a lot. That's a lot of pressure on one person. Definitely not a hater. He's great. All-time great."
Eric Nehm: FINAL: Heat 145, Pacers 125 - Antetokounmpo 31pts/17reb/10ast - Adebayo 27pts/9reb/3ast - Thompson 25pts/3ast - Larsson 18pts/3reb/3ast - Mitchell 15pts/6reb/11ast - Wiggins 12pts The Heat are now 2-4 on the season. They start a 5-game West Coast trip on Monday vs. the Lakers.
Speaking on the BasketNews Film Session, Tony Parker was presented with a hypothetical scenario: If he had to win the 2027 NBA Finals and could select any European player as his franchise cornerstone, who would he choose? With several European superstars currently dominating the NBA, including Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Parker did not hesitate to pick his fellow Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. "I will go with Wemby. He's the most complete player. He plays at both ends of the court, and he's young. He's going to keep improving," Parker said.
Q: I got to ask you about the Heat, they're off to a really slow start and it doesn't look pretty on the court. What are your thoughts on this Heat team? A lot of people are talking about the Giannis and Bam pairing that it's not working out right now. What is your evaluation of this? Amare Stoudemire: “With the Miami Heat, I know two things for sure. You have a great general, Pat Riley, and you have a great deputy chief in Coach (Erik) Spoelstra. So those two guys are going to come together and figure out the proper game plan to get the team to play cohesively and figure this thing out. The players are going to lock in because they are tired of hearing all the talk about what they can and can't do. So they're going to go into the gym and lock in also. “I'm not worried about the Miami Heat. I think they're going to be able to figure this thing out. They have a great team. I feel like they're a team that can be very competitive in the Eastern Conference. So I'm not concerned with the Heat at all, man. With Bam and Giannis, two great players, they'll figure it out. “They're great players, they're All-Star caliber players. They're gonna figure it out. Trust me.”
Following the Milwaukee Brewers' 2026 World Series victory on Wednesday, Giannis Antetokounmpo added another championship to his résumé. The Greek superstar is now a two-time champion, both as a player and an owner.
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Ira Winderman: Antetokounmpo's steal was the 1,000th of his career. That makes him the 12th player in league history with 1,000 steals, 1,000 blocked shots and at least 21,000 points, joining LeBron James and Kevin Durant as the lone active players in that group.
Damian Lillard on Milwaukee: "The experience for me was a solid experience. I think people look at it from the outside and they're like, man, Dame was miserable and they didn't do this, they didn't do that. But in my mind, I'm like, I met a lot of people there that I'm still good friends with today. I had a good experience with the organization. I think I was going through a lot personally that made it a little bit more of a challenge. But it was a solid experience, I would say, doing something outside of Portland, playing with a great player like Giannis. I think that was a luxury that I hadn't experienced."
Oh No He Didn't: Damian Lillard on his time with the Bucks: "Doing something outside of Portland, playing with a great player like Giannis, I think that was a luxury that I hadn't experienced, playing with somebody that's gonna show up, he's gonna compete. So that was like fun for me. I could just feel that it wasn't my home"
NBABase: Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo currently have a -31.6 net rating in 71 minutes together on the floor. The Heat are 0–4. Yikes.
