How Close Did Giannis Antetokounmpo Really Come to Quitting Basketball?

The new Prime Video documentary Giannis: The Marvelous Journey (available now) reveals a lot about NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo.

One of the biggest revelations is how close the Milwaukee Bucks great came quitting basketball in the winter of 2021, six months before the Bucks won their first championship in 50 years.

His father, Charles, died from a heart attack in 2017, and he had not fully processed his grief. Trying to stay strong for his family attempting to live up to the “Greak Freak” mystique and expectations that were built around him made playing basketball an ordeal.

“I don’t want to play anymore. There’s no joy in torture,” he says at one point in the film.

“It was a very very dark time,” he tells TV Insider. “There was no joy in basketball. Basketball is game. It’s a fun game. It’s a game that I love. It felt like the love was fading away because I was falling into the bubble, the negativity. I wasn’t really enjoying the game and being myself. I was trying to be somebody that people wanted me to be. … I was trying to be the MVP. I had to carry myself like the MVP. I was trying to be something that I did not want. I was trying to be the face of the league, something that doesn’t interest me. I just love the game of basketball, and I had lost that joy, that love, and it was hard for me to keep on going.”

“This documentary is about the sacrifice my parents had to go through every single day, and the things I have been through,” says @Giannis_An34 on the new @PrimeVideo documentary https://t.co/yFvjiSaa22

— TV Insider (@TVInsider) February 18, 2024

Antetokounmpo sought help from a sports psychologist to rediscover himself and his love for the game. “Six months later I gave everything I had to establish that joy again and win a championship,” he says.

Giannis: The Marvelous Journey, Available Now, Prime Video