Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo finishes third in 2022-23 MVP voting
Propped up against a wall in the visiting locker room in Orlando in early March, Giannis Antetokounmpo counted the months he had already been playing basketball.
He began ramping up his training in July of 2022 to join the Greek national team training camp in August, so he counted to nine months of play – even though the digits on his right hand were encumbered with a brace.
Though at the time Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks thought they would still be playing into May and June, it underscored the physical toll the last year placed on him – all while wrecking the NBA in another finalist campaign for Most Valuable Player.
Philadelphia center Joel Embiid won his first MVP after finishing second to Denver’s Nikola Jokić for two straight seasons. Jokić finished second while Antetokounmpo was third for the second straight year.
Embiid had 73 first-place votes, followed by Jokić (15) and Antetokounmpo (12). Jokić had the most second-place votes (52) and Antetokounmpo the most third-place votes (65). Embiid finished with 915 total points, easily outdistancing Jokić (674) and the Bucks' superstar (606).
It is the sixth straight year Antetokounmpo has received MVP votes and the fourth time he’s finished in the top three in voting. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (three MVPs, 5 top-three finishes) has more finalist finishes in Bucks history.
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Antetokounmpo put on a historic performance in his 10th season in the league, in both NBA and Bucks franchise history. He helped lead the Bucks to a 58-win regular season, the top record in the league this season and the eighth-best mark in franchise history.
“I understand the game better,” he told the Journal Sentinel earlier in the year. “I’ve been around the game. But I hope I can work hard and I can keep it up. It don’t mean nothing if you don’t follow it with wins it doesn’t mean nothing, but just the game is like, it’s simple. I know I can be effective.”
Antetokounmpo finished fifth in the NBA in scoring with a career-high 31.1 points per game and he tied for second in rebounding (11.8).
By also averaging 5.7 assists per game and making 55.3% of his shots he joined Abdul-Jabbar (1972-73) and Wilt Chamberlain (1963-64, 1965-66) to have a 30/10/5 slash line on 50% shooting.
“I’m just better,” Antetokounmpo told the Journal Sentinel earlier in the season.
He also joined Chamberlain (five times) and Elgin Baylor as the only players to have at least 40 points, 20 rebound and five assists in back-to-back games. He was also the first player since Moses Malone in 1982 to post back-to-back 40-point, 20-rebound games.
“He's the best player in the NBA right now,” Dallas star Luka Dončić said during the season. “He improves every day. He works really hard. You can see it.”
Antetokounmpo finished the year with 11 games where he scored at least 40 points and pulled down at least 10 rebounds. He hit those numbers eight times total in his two previous MVP campaigns.
His six 45-point, 10-rebound games were only surpassed by Bob McAdoo (8 in 1974-75) and Russell Westbrook (7 in 2016-17) for most in the last 50 years – and both of those players won MVP in those respective years.
“I’ve seen him evolve offensively since the first time I got here,” Bobby Portis told the Journal Sentinel. “I think he sees the game a lot differently. I think he lets the game come to him a lot more. He doesn’t force it.
"I think the (2020-21 season) there was more pressure to win. Then there was a lot of uncertainty if the Bucks can win and everybody’s talking about a coaching change. There was a lot of different elements that came with it in my first year. Now, I think there’s no pressure. Guys can go out there and just play free and I think it’s better that way.”
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Antetokounmpo put together such offensive statistics while playing 32.1 minutes per game, his fewest minutes since his MVP campaign of 2019-20 when he averaged 30.4. It was his third fewest minutes per game since becoming a regular starter in 2014-15.
“That’s a sacrifice,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst told the Journal Sentinel during the season. “That’s an intentional sacrifice by him to give our team the best chance to have the deepest playoff success possible. That’s not an easy thing. That’s something that he does so he’s ready to perform at the biggest moments.
"Give the guy 36, 37, 38 minutes a game, there’s not even a conversation. Obviously you can see I’m very strong (on this) and I believe it.”
In those minutes, Antetokounmpo led the league in usage rate (37.3%), which is an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the floor. He last led the league in 2019-20 (36.3%).
In terms of scoring efficiency, he finished the year averaging 0.97 points per minute – matching his 2019-20 MVP season and becoming the only player in league history to average more than 0.95 points per minute in multiple seasons.
Chamberlain (1.04, 1961-62) and James Harden (0.98, 2018-19) are the only others to do so.
“No one can guard him one-on-one. No one,” Denver coach Michael Malone said. “There’s a reason why he’s a two-time MVP and very easily can be a three-time MVP winner. It all starts with him.”
The hand issue, which bothered him throughout the season, wasn’t the only ailment Antetokounmpo played through. His legs needed a reprieve from Jan. 12-21. He severely sprained his right wrist on Feb. 16. He bruised a quadriceps on Feb. 26. Before suffering a contusion on his lower back in the playoffs, Antetokounmpo often found his core getting stretched out and iced up in shootarounds.
He was limited to 63 games (including two he did not finish), his fewest in a regularly scheduled 82-game season. Jokić averaged 33.7 minutes in 69 games and Embiid played 34.6 minutes in 66 games.
Antetokounmpo’s 30-point, 21-rebound, 10-assist triple-double on Jan. 4 was only the seventh of its kind in the last 40 years. Antetokounmpo’s 22-point, 12-rebound, 10-assist triple-double on March 19 saw him make all 10 of his shots. Only eight other players in history had a triple-double without missing a shot, and just three of them scored at least 20 points.
There was a six-game stretch in late January and early February where he averaged 41.2 points and 15.2 rebounds per game, the first to do that since McAdoo in 1975. He joined Moses Malone and Westbrook as the only players since 1976-77 to score at least 40 points and pull down at least 10 rebounds in three straight games (Dec. 28-Jan. 4)
Yet, he always was searching for more.
“There’s so much things I can do better,” he told the Journal Sentinel. “I know. Once I’m able to do those things better, I’m going to be the one to tell you, yeah, I’m here.”
“That’s the beauty of Giannis,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “He’s one of those people who’s constantly wanting to improve, constantly wanting to get better, including as a leader, as a defender, as a teammate. Everybody I think focuses on some of the obvious, but he wants to get better in every way, shape and form. The team feels it, the players feel it, so they want to get better. It becomes part of our mantra – how do you get better every day? When your leader is kind of walking that and believing that, it infiltrates the team.”
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Giannis makes Bucks history
Khris Middleton joked when he broke Ray Allen’s club record for made three-pointers in 2020 that maybe it was the one team record Antetokounmpo would let him have. He laughed at the truth of it.
During the 2022-23 season, Antetokounmpo set franchise records for:
Games played
Minutes played
Assists
Made free throws
Field goal attempts
Most all-star appearances
He had the third-highest scoring season in franchise history and joined Abdul-Jabbar as the only Bucks player to ever average at least 30 points per game. In doing so, Antetokounmpo had an eight-game stretch of scoring at least 30 points, which was a career high and tied for second-longest in team history.
He also scored a career-high 55 points on Jan. 1, the second-most in franchise history.
On nearly every occasion in 2022-23, Antetokounmpo was doing something that made his coaches, teammates – and opponents – shake their head in bewilderment.
“As a competitor, just look at his body language, his affect, his approach to the game, I mean, it’s all business all the time,” Indiana head coach Rick Carlisle said. “The Milwaukee franchise has really been blessed to have a guy like that for whatever it’s been, eight or 10 years now.”
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Giannis Antetokounmpo finishes third in 2022-23 MVP voting
