Could that happen again?
Only a few people knew about Giannis when he was drafted 10 years ago.
Fran Fraschilla is the guy who introduced Giannis Antetokounmpo to the basketball masses.
The longtime ESPN analyst and former college coach had developed a niche as the authority on foreign prospects during television broadcasts of the NBA draft.
Not even hardcore Milwaukee Bucks fans knew much of Antetokounmpo when he was drafted by the team on June 27, 2013, so Fraschilla’s brief scouting report was their first insight into the future two-time MVP who would lead the franchise to its first championship in 50 years.
“He’s got a Kevin Durant body,” Fraschilla told the audience that day. “He handles the ball like a point forward. He’s got a great feel for the game and he’s a great kid with a high motor.”
Fraschilla isn’t part of draft broadcasts anymore, but a decade later he takes special pride in getting that particular insight right.
“That was one of my favorite parts of the job was I knew the international kids better than anybody,” Fraschilla said. “I did. I was lucky, too, and all the things I thought could happen have happened tenfold.
“I didn’t see the greatness. The thing I didn’t see that nobody could tell was you couldn’t tell what was inside his heart. And his motor and his emotional intelligence. The NBA body and skills were there. And then you pair that with his unique hunger to be great, and then he grew 2 inches or 3, and then you have a guy that’s going to be on the way to being an all-time great.”
The basketball landscape has changed so much in the 10 years since Antetokounmpo landed with the Bucks. Full games and video breakdowns of foreign players are available to anyone in the world with a strong WiFi connection. NBA hopefuls can hype up themselves with an engaging presence on social media.
Having an all-time great player like Antetokounmpo appear out of nowhere to the general public feels like it will never happen again. After all, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the next draft, France’s Victor Wembenyama, has been titillating professional and amateur scouts alike for years.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was ‘hiding in plain sight’ in 2013
Antetokounmpo is delightfully different from most NBA stars, as anyone who has watched his frequently philosophical news conferences can attest.
He’s also decidedly old school compared to young players whose exploits are served up nonstop on social media.
“Slam magazine, ESPN, Bleacher Report or whatever those sites are, they can post videos all day,” Antetokounmpo said. “A kid can get a lot of exposure and be hyped up too much. But at the end of the day, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not that good.
“So back in the day ... no internet, no social media, just waking up and reading your newspaper. Waiting for the guy on the bike, like the movies, throwing the newspaper in front of your front door and you’re picking it up and you’re reading. I prefer that more.”
In 2013, Antetokounmpo wasn’t afforded the luxuries of self-promotion.
“We were already into the Internet age with Twitter and everything,” Fraschilla said. “But what I do know is that he happened upon us very unconventionally. He was a kid from the streets of Athens, an immigrant family. They were somewhat in hiding because they were not citizens.
“He didn’t get his Greek citizenship until the Greek government realized he was a treasure being able to play for the national team someday. So he literally gets his citizenship that May or June before the draft. And he was still hiding in plain sight even though some scouts knew about him leading up to the draft.”
Antetokounmpo’s only online presence before the draft came on a brief interview with DraftExpress, and that video only became widely watched after he skyrocketed to fame.
At that time, only overseas basketball junkies such as Fraschilla were aware of Antetokounmpo. Fraschilla talks about seeing Antetokounmpo for the first time like Liverpudlians who frequented the cramped Cavern Club in the early 1960s and got to see The Beatles in their pre-fame days.
“Where it started with me was, I was always on the EuroCamp staff,” Fraschilla said. “I was the only non-NBA coach or scout that was on the staff. So for 12 years we had the camp in Treviso, Italy, which is about 20 minutes from Venice.
“I remember we all knew about the buzz with Giannis, and then in a major coincidence he got his Greek citizenship. This was the year he was drafted. They were playing in what we call a friendly tournament, an exhibition tournament, it was the Greek under-20 team that was getting ready for that summer’s July European Championships.
“Every year there’s an under-16, under-18 and under-20 tournament there with all the best teams in Europe. They were in a beach town about 40 minutes from Treviso. As I recall it was Russia, Turkey, Italy and Greece and when the NBA scouts found out he was going to be 40 minutes from EuroCamp, the camp shut down at night for three straight nights. We normally went from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening.
“But it shut down and every NBA team was at this tournament to see Giannis for the first time. Now scouts had seen him before this, but this was the first time I would say the true coming out party for Giannis in front of the entire league.”
That’s just so analogue, compared to Wembenyama coming across the pond in October for a set of made-for-viral-clips games against another transcendent draft prospect in the NBA G League’s Scoot Henderson.
“As I said before, it might be good for some kids,” Antetokounmpo said. “Some other kids, it might blow their brains up and make them think they’re too big.
“But at the end of the day, you can also use that platform for other things. For your brand, for good, for giving back. But, for sure, the exposure that we get (in the NBA), that young kids get, the next generation will get from social media, it’s going to be more and more and more.”
Where would the next Giannis Antetokounmpo emerge from?
Fraschilla can break down the history of foreign basketball like he’s dissecting a team’s pick-and-roll coverages. He sees a through-line from NCAA coaches giving overseas clinics in the 1960s to the Dream Team in 1992 to Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol in the 2000s prompting NBA teams to expand global scouting.
“Nowadays most NBA teams have a guy that can cover every part of the world,” Fraschilla said. “Giannis still slipped through the cracks only because he was unconventional because he did come from the streets of Athens. And played in a league that the talent level was basically American JUCO (junior college). They called it Greek second division. And so anyway, Giannis is just part of this incredible revolution that has taken place over 50 years that was expedited by the Dream Team and I think in the last 20 years in the explosion of the NBA around the world.”
The NBA has opened several academies across the world to develop prospects, with the idea that there is another Antetokounmpo out there somewhere.
“I think Africa is still uncharted territory,” Fraschilla said. “Sixty-two countries. The NBA, which has been a big sponsor of the Basketball Africa League, that’s the next frontier for sure. The amount of talent and athleticism that is coming from the continent of Africa is going to be an incredible resource for the NBA in the next 50 years.
“They have an academy in Senegal. And remember, Giannis is Nigerian by birth. Naturalized Greek citizen obviously but family are Nigerian immigrants. It’s really fascinating to see. It’s great for the game.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver thinks the digitally connected world helps increase the chances of unearthing another gem.
“On one hand, what’s very different now as opposed to even 10 years ago, we have NBA academies on multiple continents now, we have our Basketball Without Borders camps, and there are other elite basketball schools really in every corner of the world devoted to training young players, boys and girls, these days,” Silver said. “But having said that, when I think about the ability now through social media, through digital applications like the NBA app for example, for a young player with something as simple as a cell connection to go and watch highlights and watch instructional videos that you can find on our website or on our app and the ability for a player, at least in part, to develop their skills on their own.”
Antetokounmpo can’t imagine growing up in this era with all the digital distractions. Of course, his singular focus over the last decade is what’s helped him become one of the greatest players in NBA history.
“I wouldn’t have social media,” Antetokounmpo said. “Or maybe I would have, to be honest with you, but maybe my agency would hire somebody to run it for me. It doesn’t make me better.
“I do things that I enjoy and things that improve me as a person. If it doesn’t improve me as a person, I don’t waste my time. There’s obviously a lot of opportunities that you can use it for. You know, for your brand. You get a lot of endorsements. People get paid to do paid posts or whatever the case may be.
“For me, my focuses are my family and basketball.”