NBA: The Antetokounmpo brothers of Milwaukee Bucks bring NBA trophy home to Greece

The Greek brothers, Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, helped the Milwaukee Bucks to its first NBA championship in 50 years.

Published : Aug 01, 2021 23:09 IST

Giannis Antetokounmpo (right) and Thanasis Antetokounmpo (left) with their mother Veronica and the NBA Winner's trophy at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens.
Giannis Antetokounmpo (right) and Thanasis Antetokounmpo (left) with their mother Veronica and the NBA Winner's trophy at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo (right) and Thanasis Antetokounmpo (left) with their mother Veronica and the NBA Winner's trophy at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens.

Milawaukee Bucks' stars Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, the Greek brothers who helped their side to its first NBA championship in 50 years last month, promised to take the trophy back to Sepolia, the run-down Athens neighbourhood where they grew up.

Born in Greece to Nigerian immigrant parents, the Antetokounmpo brothers had to sell trinkets on the street to get by.

They grew up fearing deportation and did not obtain Greek citizenship until 2013.

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"I am very, very happy that one of the biggest trophies in the world is in Greece right now," Giannis told a news conference during a visit to Athens with his brother alongside him.

"It's an incredible thing. We don't know how many days we'll stay, but we definitely want to take it back to Sepolia and the places we grew up."

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Giannis Antetokounmpo (right) of Milwaukee Bucks in action in the NBA finals as the Bucks won its first NBA title in half a century
 

Giannis - sometimes dubbed "the Greek Freak" - was the dominant player in the finals series against the Phoenix Suns, scoring 50 points in the last game and winning the Most Valuable Player award.

Thanasis was forced to sit out the last two games of the finals under COVID-19 protocols.

The brothers' extraordinary rise from Sepolia to the NBA has seized the imagination of the whole of Greece, where basketball normally trails football in popularity.

In their old neighbourhood, rarely celebrated in the headlines, a giant mural of Giannis in his Milwaukee Bucks jersey, across the court where he and his brothers played and practised, is testament to the pride felt in his success.

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"This journey has been crazy. If you told me eight years ago that I'd be in this position, along with Thanasis, and we'd have the NBA trophy with us, and that we can take it anywhere we wanted, I'd say you're crazy," said Giannis.

"But it's all been done with hard work – and we haven’t stopped. We don't stop, as a family."

"That's what we saw all our lives, our parents never stopped, we'd get back home after school, after practice and we saw our parents constantly working, every day to feed us," he added.

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