Doc Rivers talks Giannis Antetokounmpo leaving Bucks, challenges of coaching superstar

Giannis Antetokounmpo is one-of-one. He doesn’t play in the style of other superstars, which makes coaching the NBA champion and two-time MVP a particular challenge.

Doc Rivers, the former Bucks coach turned NBC Sports studio host for NBA broadcasts, pulled no punches when talking about how he found it difficult to coach Antetokounmpo in an appearance on the Bill Simmons podcast.

Doc Rivers tells Bill Simmons it was so hard for him to coach Giannis Antetokounmpo during his tenure with the Milwaukee Bucks:

“He’s not easy. He plays at this crazy downhill pace. He’s really a difficult guy. He has this great passing ability, but he doesn’t have a super-high…

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"I liked Giannis a lot. I liked him more as a dude. He’s interesting. He’s not easy. He’s not easy because he plays at this crazy downhill pace. He’s really a difficult guy….

"He has this great passing ability, but he doesn’t necessarily have this super IQ at the same time. It’s really a strange thing, and he really has one way: downhill, force, force. Every play, he wants to force it. I wish he learned how to execute better. He’s one of those guys… that have never needed to execute because they can do it on their own. But that doesn’t help the team. And I told Giannis this, the thing he needs to still learn is the value of execution. How important it is when you’re in practice and shoot-arounds to lock in on execution. And now he has a coach [Erik Spoelstra] who is as good as there is in execution."

Rivers came in at the end of Antetokounmpo’s time in Milwaukee, taking over in the middle of the 2023-24 season, and the team never found a consistent identity under Rivers’ leadership. Part of that was the personnel around Antetokounmpo at the time: Jrue Holiday was gone, Kris Middleton was battling injuries and not the same player as his peak, and Damian Lillard was supposed to be the "fix."

Rivers also was there for Antetokounmpo’s exit from Milwaukee, and he talked about that as well with Simmons.

"Giannis wanted out, but he was a Buck. And he didn’t want to be the bad guy. He wanted [GM Jon Horst and owner Wes Edens] and those guys to say, ‘We’re trading you,’ instead of him asking for a trade. To me, that was the game that was being played."

That take is not controversial, that’s how pretty much everyone saw Antetokounmpo’s exit from Milwaukee.

His comments on Antetokounmpo’s play are going to draw pushback out of Miami.

Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.