Giannis Antetokounmpo almost left the game of basketball behind. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. The best player in the NBA nearly retired back in 2020. That almost happened.
Antetokounmpo, fresh off of signing a five-year, $228 million deal and winning back-to-back MVPs in 2018 and 2019, was ready to leave the NBA behind at 25 years old despite all that could potentially be ahead of him.
He won an NBA title the very next season. He got his first Finals MVP trophy in 2021. Today, he’s still widely considered one of the three best players in the NBA. And we were so close to almost none of this coming to fruition.
Why? Because of Antetokounmpo’s mental health.
Antetokounmpo opened up about his experience to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Lori Nickel, revealing that he indeed almost walked away from the game in 2020.
Giannis Antetokounmpo reveals he almost retired in 2020
“In 2020, I was ready to walk away from the game. I had that conversation – yes – with the front office.”
(Via Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) pic.twitter.com/QojqmAei2t
— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) April 12, 2023
To see this without context might be absolutely puzzling. One would rightfully think that Antetokounmpo was quite literally at the top of his game at that point. He piled success on top of success and signed the richest deal in NBA history because of it. Why would anyone want to walk away from that?
He explained why.
“And, you know, very normally, everybody is looking at me like I was crazy. ‘You just signed the largest contract in NBA history and you want to walk away from the game and all that money…?’
“Mannnnn, you can take that money and shove it into your…”
His youngest son coughs; Giannis continues.
“…Sorry for my language.
“But. I don’t care about that. I care about joy. I’m a joyful person. My father didn’t have nothing; he had us. He was the richest person on earth because he had his kids. He had the beautiful family; he had nothing. This – to me – doesn’t mean nothing.”
And that’s when it all starts to make sense. Just think about where Antetokounmpo was mentally at that point.
In 2019, Antetokounmpo lost his father, Charles, to a heart attack at just 54 years old. The same man who scratched and clawed his way out of poverty for his family, including Giannis and his brothers. Obviously, he meant a lot to Antetokounmpo and instilled in him the principles by which the All-Star operates today.
Then came 2020, and the world was suddenly thrust into mass isolation and uncertainty at the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic as we tried to navigate a literal global health crisis. On top of that, folks were taking to the streets in protest after seeing Black folks being killed by those who’d sworn to protect them.
That impacted us all. No matter what your financial status was, who you were or what you looked like, there was no shielding yourself from one of the most traumatic years many of us had ever experienced.
So there’s Giannis. The best player in the world, yes. But also a 25-year-old man who just had his first child.
And the world is burning around him.
Everybody wants a piece of him. Not just fans and media, but the Bucks. Nike. Every company wanting to use his face and image to sell a product. He’s got to put that smile on for all of them all of the time.
And the world is burning around him.
All the while, his father — the one anchor he had to hold him down for his entire life — is gone.
And the world is burning around him.
Those weren’t — and still aren’t — problems money could solve. Giannis felt that. The rest of us did, too, and still do. That’s why the best player in the world was ready to walk away from the game that he loved. The love was gone. And many of us would’ve been ready to do the same thing.
Yes, I’m thankful that Giannis is still here and playing basketball. But I’m far more thankful that he found the help that he needed to move forward in his life.
That’s what truly makes him the winner here.