Rico's Take: Giannis Had A Perfect Response To A Reporter Asking Him About The Bucks Season Being A Failure

Listen I saw this tweet notification and first it only showed “was the Bucks season a failure” on the banner on my phone and without even blinking went to quote tweet it with something smarmy like “Did Rose Kennedy have a black dress?” Then I saw that Giannis had a response and watched it. 

I gotta give the guy credit. This is a perfect perfect perfect answer. First let me  say it’s interesting that the same guy asked the same question last year and Giannis knew right away who it was. You know he has an axe to grind and wants to bash the Bucks the best he can. Reminds me of when tennis ball hair aka Dan Shaughnessy asked Kevin Millar about the Red Sox being embarrassing in 2004. 

The guy has an agenda and you can almost tell he wanted to write or say on his podcast that the headline was “Giannis calls the season a failure.” He baited him into an answer that fit his agenda and Giannis shut that shit down real quick. Credit to him. 

Now onto the answer. 

It’s fantastic. I really believe that. Did he go a little over the top to prove a point that if you measure everything except achieving the most success or the highest honor as a failure? For sure. But … he does have a point. And when you take away sports his point resonates. Is every year you don’t get a promotion a failure? Is every year you don’t win sales associate of the year a failure? Is every year you don’t get recognition a failure? 

Even more so, does everyone work for the biggest and best companies? If you don’t is that a failure? If you work for a small accounting firm are you a failure because you don’t work for Ernst and Young? Are you expected to win Teacher of The Year your first year out of college? Isn’t professional development about building to be better each year? 

I think all these are fair questions to ask regular people by Giannis. He’s getting judged because they got bounced in the 1st round as a 1 seed, and everyone wants jump on athletes and think they can say whatever they want, but the truth is no one would dare say the shit they say about teams or athletes to people in the real world. Imagine telling a 40 year teacher they were a failure because they didn’t win teacher of the year every year. It’s insane. The teacher built up an impressive resume, touched lives, likely inspired others to become teachers , and made the place better than they left it. That’s a good career. An athlete like Giannis is performing at the top level, is one of the greatest athletes in the world, and is competing against other world class players trying to win a championship in a team sport. There is no way in earth he is going to win every year. Any year he actually wins a title is a mixture of hard work, dedication, and let’s call a spade a spade- some luck and the right bounces. That’s how sports go. Dean Smith is considered one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time and he won two titles. The first was because Sleepy Flloyd literally threw the worst pass in history away when he had a chance to win the game. 

The second was because Chris Webber called a timeout when he didn’t have any. 

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Those weren’t the only reasons UNC won those titles, but if both of those breaks go against them what are we saying about Smith’s career? He had 879 wins in his career and 2 titles. If he lost both he’d have 877 and none. You would still have to consider him a terrific coach but the titles carry so much weight. That’s how sports is, but you can’t say he was a failure if he never won. Should we say that about Mark Few? The guy took some college with a weird name to a perennial powerhouse year after year and he’s crucified because he hasn’t won a title in the must brutally unforgiving post season formatted tournament in sports? I think Giannis was fair to bring up Michael Jordan in that answer. I think he was fair to try and lay out real life examples to the reporting without going in on him personally. 

I loved the answer, I really did. Sports is about trying to get better everyday and yes players and teams will get dragged for embarrassing losses like this one, but if we judged everyone who didn’t win a title we’d be blue in the face. Only one team gets the hardware at the end of the year. 29 of 30 teams are failures every year. It’s the process of how we crown that champion that makes sports so wonderful and so unscripted and so perfect. If we just gave the trophy to the best team on paper without watching it play out how boring would that be? What the fuck would we watch on television? What the fuck would we debate? How would we entertain ourselves? 

The Bucks lost because Jimmy Butler played out of his freaking mind and hit some insane shots and the bounces went against them. Is it upsetting to their team and fans they lost? Sure. Does it suck? Of course. But Giannis has a great point, don’t focus spending all your time listing the times your faltered and fixating on them, instead try  to build on those mistakes, to become a champion. That’s what playing a sport is about. It’s suffering all that pain because it makes cherishing a victory that much sweeter. 

Loved Giannis answer and couldn’t agree more with his points.