By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo talked about life without any play during the hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, his day-to-day routine, staying in shape during the break, and his donation of 100,00 to the workers of the Fiserv Forum:
Here’s what Giannis said in a conference call with Milwaukee media on:
Life without basketball:
“Obviously spending time with your family is great. We don’t get to do that a lot during the season. But at the end of the day, I know that everybody in this group and on the team misses playing basketball and we can’t wait for the season to start again. We have to try and take advantage of this, like spend time with the family. You can’t do much, you can’t leave the house, but being around them is nice. In the back of everybody’s mind, everybody wants the season to start again and to do what they love.”
How he spends his day:
“You know, you can’t do much. I wake up, I do a workout with my brothers, spend some time with my son, then I play a little bit of video games with my little brother. What else? Cleaning around the house, just doing productive stuff. Make a few calls that I have to call. You have to make sure you keep yourself going, you have to do stuff that you don’t usually do in the season. I’m in meeting calls, I freaking cook, I clean, I don’t go to the grocery store because you can’t go to the grocery store, Bled [laughs]. But yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
The Bucks organization providing him and his teammates with what they need:
“They gave us bands, they gave us a bike, they provide us with workouts we can do at home. I think the most important thing is that they also are providing us with food. They have a catering company that still brings us food for us and our families in the house. That’s pretty much it. They tell us to stay home, to do our workouts, to take care of our body at home and that’s pretty much it.”
Season resumption:
“First of all, you have to stay ready. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to stay ready, because you never know what you’re going to expect. I think the league and Adam Silver are doing a difficult job and will come up with a good plan that will make sure every player is ready to go, because it’s going to be really important when the season starts, because I think most of the guys aren’t going to be ready and you can get a lot of injuries. I know the NBA is going to come out with a great plan to make sure that the teams, the players, everybody is ready to go.”
His donation to the Fiserv Forum workers:
“First of all, I tried to follow Kevin Love’s lead. I know that we work with these people every day. My first reaction when the league was suspended was, ‘Are these people going to be able to work? Are these people going to be able to leave their homes? Are these people going to be able to provide for themselves and their families? Because most of these people probably live from check-to-check, so me and my family decided to help as much as we could. For me personally, I don’t care about what people think and what people say about me or my family, because at the end of the day it’s about helping one another. Even if you get a positive reaction, or a negative reaction it doesn’t really matter, because all that matters is how can you help those families that are in need right now in this period that we’re going through?”
Working out:
“I don’t have access to a hoop. A lot of NBA players might have a court in their house or something, but now I just get home workouts, ride the bike, treadmill, lift weights and stay sharp that way. I don’t play basketball at all.”
Watching film of games:
“I try not to drive myself crazy. Obviously, I watch a lot of highlights. I don’t sit down to watch film at all. I just do it by myself. Coach Bud is not sending me film or highlights Coach Bud is thinking about his own family. I just watch highlights. I just pick a player and watch their highlights. That’s it.”