Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo wins second consecutive NBA MVP award

Lake Buena Vista, Florida – Giannis Antetokounmpo’s landmark year earned him a historic award sweep.

The Milwaukee forward is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season, receiving that award on Friday. He won the Defensive Player of the Year award earlier in these NBA playoffs.

Antetokounmpo, 25, becomes the third player in league history to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, joining only Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon.

“Michael Jordan, one of the best players to ever do it, if not the best,” Antetokounmpo said. “Hakeem, a guy I admire, came from where I am, Nigeria, where I have roots. … Just being in the same sentence with them, that means a lot to me. “

Antetokounmpo, who was in his native Athens, Greece, with his family when the award was announced, received 85 votes from the 100-person panel of world sports writers and broadcasters covering the league, plus an additional vote awarded by winning the vote of the fanatics. .

“It feels good that this award is announced when I get home,” Antetokounmpo said, after telling NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who was in possession of the trophy on Friday, to hold on to the hardware until he returns to the US. USA

“I’m going to send it to Greece,” Silver said during the televised ad program on NBA TV.

“No, don’t do that,” Antetokounmpo replied. “I’ll go get him when the season starts.”

LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers got the other 15 first-place votes and finished second, and James Harden of the Houston Rockets finished third. James has been first, second or third in MVP voting 11 times in his career, and Harden has been one of the top three in each of the past four seasons.

Antetokounmpo’s numbers this season were unprecedented, with averages of 29.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game. No one had averaged those numbers for an entire season; Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor had seasons in which they surpassed Antetokounmpo’s scoring and rebounding averages, although both came close to matching their average attendance.

And the numbers didn’t inflate in big minutes either. Antetokounmpo was fifth in the NBA in scoring, second in the league in rebounding, but just 71 in minutes per game. He led the Bucks to the best record in the NBA this season, before Milwaukee was kicked out of the playoffs by Miami in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

“Giannis, in our mind, has done more than enough to earn back-to-back MVPs,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said when the team was in the NBA reset bubble at Walt Disney World this summer. “What he does for us on both ends of the court, what he does every night, the way he sets the bar for us, culturally, work ethically… he’s an amazing teammate, he plays selflessly, he does everything. And I think that’s what MVP is, so we certainly feel like he deserves it. “

Jordan won both MVP and Defensive Player in 1987-88 and Olajuwon won both in 1993-94. Antetokounmpo came close to joining the club last season by winning the MVP and finishing second in the Defensive Player voting.

A handful of others have also been first and second in those categories in the same year. Kawhi Leonard was second in the MVP race and won Defensive Player in 2015-16, as did Dwight Howard in 2010-11 and Alonzo Mourning in 1998-99. James won MVP and was second in Defensive Player voting in 2008-09 and 2012-13, and Shaquille O’Neal did so in 1999-2000.

But only two players had made the sweep, so far.

“It has been a long journey,” Antetokounmpo said. “People who know me, people who know my story, can never take these moments for granted.”

Luka Doncic of Dallas was fourth, Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers was fifth and Anthony Davis of the Lakers was sixth. Rounding out the top 12: Chris Paul from Oklahoma City, Damian Lillard from Portland, Nikola Jokic from Denver, Pascal Siakam from Toronto, Jimmy Butler from Miami and Jayson Tatum from Boston.

Antetokounmpo also becomes the fourteenth player with multiple MVP awards and the second international player at that club, joining Canadian Steve Nash. This is the fifth time someone has won the Most Valuable Player award playing for the Bucks (only Boston, Los Angeles Lakers, Philadelphia and Chicago have had more) and he is the 11th player to win consecutive MVPs.

The others: Stephen Curry, James, Nash, Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.

“I am happy for this, I am happy for this award,” said Antetokounmpo. “But I want more.… I have to keep improving. I want to be a champion.”