There are just some things you don’t do in the NBA, and talking trash to Giannis Antetokounmpo feels like one of those them.
Antetokounmpo just looks and talks so nice. Any anecdote you hear paints the picture of an innocent 20-year-old kid, one who is great at basketball but doesn’t seem like he has a mean bone in his body.
But Carmelo Anthony and Anthony Davis don’t care. Antetokounmpo recounted some of what fellow NBA players have said to him through his first two seasons, and both Melo and Davis made the cut, as did Marcin Gortat.
Here’s what Antetokounmpo says on his blog (h/t HoopsHype):
Carmelo Anthony: Kid, you can’t defend me.
Marcin Gortat: In a game in the first season I had played 30 minutes as a playmaker. He was looking me up and down. At one point he turned around and asked me: How old are you? I told him I was 19. We were standing at the free throw side-by-side for the box-out and as soon as I told him I was 19 he looks at me and says: Keep working, you’ll make history.
Anthony Davis: He was trying to post me and I was using all of my strength, I didn’t let him. He turns around, shoots off balance and scores. As we were running side-by-side, he says to me: You can’t guard me young fella! As we were running together towards the Bucks’ offense, I process it and think about it. Dude, what are you talking about? You’re only a year older than me! In the next possession he was defending me and I scored that shot where I faked and I let the ball in with the left hand.
Leave it to Melo to be short and sweet and totally unoriginal when it comes to talking smack. Maybe his old age has softened him. Or maybe he just didn’t have the heart to really light into Antetokounmpo, as if he were shit talking Kevin Garnett. Or perhaps he’s just truly bad at trash talking.
What Gortat said was totally sweet. It’s not even a form of trash talk. The Polish Hammer has an affectionate side. Who’ve thunk it?
Davis’ comments are just hysterical. He seems equally polite sometimes, so it’s almost difficult to imagine him saying anything off color to Antetokounmpo. But apparently he did. And when he did, he rolled with “young fella,” because, well, I don’t know. He isn’t even two full years older than Antetokounmpo, and there are some—as in everyone ever—who would refer to Davis as “young fella” himself.
Anthony gets away with calling Antetokounmpo “kid,” because he’s more than a decade his senior. As for Davis, he’s not really at the point where he can call anyone a kid or young fella. Once he reaches an age where certain incoming rookies aren’t older than him (Jerian Grant), we’ll let something like this slide.
Until then, you’re allowed—encouraged really—to laugh uncontrollably.
