Giannis Antetokounmpo has never been shy about where his drive came from, and in a recent interview with former Bucks broadcaster Jim Paschke, he pointed to two very different influences: Allen Iverson and Jabari Parker.
Antetokounmpo said Iverson was the player he admired most as a kid, even down to the look.
“Allen Iverson never won championships. He was my favorite player growing up, and I looked up to him.
I wanted to be him. I had cornrows because of him as a kid.
So, I was able to get older, work hard, make the NBA, and then win a championship. He’s part of my success.”
Before getting to Iverson, Antetokounmpo also talked about how he views greatness in sports more broadly.
“In sports, our success is just winning the championship,” Antetokounmpo began. “Now there’s some people who have never won a championship, like Charles Barkley, a lot of other players, not just Charles Barkley, but they have impacted the game, they’re part of the culture.”
Iverson’s influence on Antetokounmpo fits the larger story of the former Sixers star, whose style and personality made him one of the most recognizable figures in NBA history. His impact went well beyond the box score, and Antetokounmpo made clear he was one of the players who helped shape his own path.
But when it came to the day-to-day push that helped Antetokounmpo keep climbing, he said Jabari Parker played a huge role.
“One of my biggest motivators in my career, one of my favorite teammates also, Jabari Parker. Now I was able to kind of measure myself against him, right?
They had him as a he was the number two pick, and he will be an All-Star, he’ll be MVP… And every single day I said okay I will try to work; if he works one hour, I will work one hour and a half. If he works two hours, I work two hours and a half every single day.”
“That was one of the guys that, until today, I’ve never told him this, but he motivated me so much to be better because he was so damn good. So damn good.”
Parker entered the league one year after Antetokounmpo and arrived with plenty of hype, but injuries changed the trajectory of his career. After showing promise in his second season, he had trouble staying on the floor and never fully settled in.
His time with the Bucks ended in 2018, and after that he moved from team to team without locking down a regular role. Once the 2021-22 season wrapped up, he took his career overseas and most recently played for Joventut Badalona in Spain.
The connection between the two careers is hard to miss. Parker left, Antetokounmpo kept rising, won his first MVP after Parker’s departure, and then captured his first NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021.
It leaves Milwaukee with one more version of the same old question: what might have happened if Parker and Antetokounmpo had stayed together long enough to see what that pairing could become?
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