Why does the Giannis biopic mention two Milwaukee-born ex-NBA players?
In the biopic of Milwaukee’s biggest basketball star, there is a line that will make the city’s hoopsologists sit up and hit the rewind button to make sure that they heard it correctly.
The Disney+ movie “Rise” depicts Giannis Antetokounmpo’s ascent from a poverty-stricken childhood in Greece to (spoiler alert!) the first-round draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks in 2013. In a scene set before the draft, a nervous Antetokounmpo asks older brother Thanasis – they are played by real-life siblings Uche and Ral Agada – if there is a chance that he won’t get selected.
“People come here all the time and didn’t get picked,” Thanasis assures Giannis. “Dwight Buycks. Diante Garrett. JaMychal Green. They all made it to NBA. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish.”
Wait ... rewind that. Did he just say Dwight Buycks and Diante Garrett? The two Milwaukee natives who fought their way into the league and combined for 139 games played? That’s an interesting choice instead of, say, Ben Wallace and John Starks, two of the most famous undrafted players in NBA history.
It turns out that the reference was a sly nod to the city in which Antetokounmpo became an all-time great and where Buycks and Garrett are local legends.
“It was pure serendipity,” screenwriter Arash Amel said. “While working on the script, I was looking for examples Thanasis could use to lift Giannis’ spirits going into the draft sequence of the movie. Players who didn’t get picked but eventually made it into the NBA.
“Diante and Dwight were two perfect examples that jumped out at me, both in the 2011 draft, and the fact they were from Milwaukee allowed for a
cinematic wink towards Milwaukee as a future destination for Giannis. There’s something magical about Milwaukee in the culmination of this story that allowed all the dots to keep connecting in this way.”
A surprising name drop
Neither Buycks or Garrett knew what was coming when the movie was released last week. Both started getting messages on their phones with people sharing the clip.
“Everybody started writing me on Twitter and Instagram and stuff like that,” Garrett said. “Just saying like, ‘Oh they got your name in there in the movie. You on Disney+! You famous!’”
Garrett is living in Charlotte, North Carolina, and trying to figure out the next stop on his decade-plus playing career that includes 10 foreign countries. He has heard from plenty of Milwaukee people over the last few days.
“Last night my niece called me and said she watched the movie a couple times and was crying,” Garrett said. “My mom was calling me, saying, ‘What’s up, movie star!’
“I’m not a movie star, but it does feel good to have your name be in the movie and be mentioned like that.”
Buycks is also well-traveled with six countries on his résumé. He is currently playing in Puerto Rico and still hasn’t seen the movie.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Buycks said. “I remember seeing (Giannis’) premiere (on social media), saying he was going to have his story coming out, but that was it. I’ve been kind of moving around, so it kind of slipped my mind. But it got refreshed when people started hitting me up and sending me the video.”
Buycks, Garrett had their own rise
The 33-year-old Milwaukee ballers, who competed against each other in middle school and high school, had their own hard paths to the NBA, though not quite a made-for-Hollywood tale like going from selling trinkets on the streets of Athens to a super-max NBA contract.
“It was a grind,” Garrett said. “Everyone looking past you. You got to prove people wrong and show them what you got. I somewhat did that, too, and it all paid off for me.”
Garrett was an all-state guard at Vincent High School and played at Iowa State from 2007-11. He had stints in Croatia and France before landing with the Phoenix Suns and appearing in 19 games in the 2012-13 season. He played in 71 games for the Utah Jazz the next season.
Buycks also was an all-state player, at Bay View High School. He then spent two seasons at Indian Hills Community College before landing at Marquette for two years. After going undrafted, he spent time in the National Basketball Development League (now known as the G League) before signing with the Suns briefly in December 2011. He didn’t get into a NBA game until he was with the Toronto Raptors in the 2013-14 season. Buycks also had stints with the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit Pistons.
So they both beat long odds to log time in the NBA. But scrutinizing the timeline, their careers probably wouldn’t have been motivational fodder in 2013 like the fictional scene between Thanasis and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Green, the other player mentioned by Thanasis, actually didn’t make his NBA debut until the 2014-15 season.
“There was a little artistic license there,” Amel said of his script before correctly noting that Buycks, Garrett and Green had been on NBA preseason and summer-league rosters by 2013 so, in theory, they could have been held up as examples of undrafted players chasing their dreams.
Inspiring future generations
Garrett comes from a proud hoops legacy. His father, Dick, played in the NBA from 1969-74 and is a popular Bucks employee at Fiserv Forum. Now Diante’s 12-year-old son is even more excited about the game after watching “Rise.”
“He was like, ‘Dad, they got your name in here, wow!’ “Garrett said.
“I think it’s like a motivational movie, too,” he added. “It’s going to be a movie that’s going to be played like 20 years from now. I think kids or even adults will be able to look at the movie and be able to use it as motivation. Push my son or push my daughter or push people to watch this movie for motivation. I enjoyed the movie a lot. It had me crying.”
Buycks’ children haven’t watched “Rise” yet, but he’s eager to see the reaction when they – and future generations – hear his name.
“It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about these last 48 hours,” Buycks said. “Knowing it’s Disney, at that. Everybody watch Disney and the fan base of Disney is crazy. It’s something that gives you a smile, just thinking about that. That’s definitely a big deal.”
Curious people will now wonder about the movie’s references to Buycks and Garrett and look up their stories.
“That’s just good for everybody in Milwaukee, all the kids growing up,” Buycks said. “All the kids that’s trying to be playing right now and pursuing their dreams. To see that, that should give them extra motivation as well, given our stories and how we had to do our thing to get to where we wanted to get.”