WIDENING HIS STANCE and adjusting the grip of his nearly 10-inch hands on a plastic yellow bat, Giannis Antetokounmpo was determined to make contact with the little white ball.
It was a chilly day in April 2019, and Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer shook up his team's daily routine, converting the basketball courts into a makeshift Wiffle ball diamond. The dominance Antetokounmpo exhibits in Bucks scrimmages didn't translate.
Sometimes, he would swing the bat with impressive force but miss the ball completely. Other times, he would pop the ball straight up toward the rafters. Again and again, he would swing -- but he couldn't get into the rhythm that many 11-year-old summer campers can master.
That afternoon, his girlfriend, Mariah Riddlesprigger, asked about the game.
"She was like, 'How did you do?'" Antetokounmpo recalled. "I was like, 'Yeah, I was terrible."
After Milwaukee's season ended in the Eastern Conference finals that summer, Antetokounmpo and Riddlesprigger drove back through downtown Milwaukee to the practice facility. Offseason improvement has become a cherished ritual for Antetokounmpo. But he wasn't dropping in so that he could get up some shots or watch film of his missteps in the elimination game against the Toronto Raptors.
Antetokounmpo wanted to correct his Wiffle ball swing. With Riddlesprigger pitching, they worked on his game.
"I learned the technique and kept doing it," Antetokounmpo said. "And then I wasn't missing. I was really good."
While he is pleased with his progress, he hasn't gotten another chance to prove it to teammates. They haven't played Wiffle ball since.
"I want the team to play again to show them that I improved," he said, shaking his head.
Antetokounmpo is a two-time NBA MVP. The 26-year-old is signing a five-year, $228 million supermax extension with the Bucks. But work remains for a star still seeking his first Finals appearance. Antetokounmpo knows the league expects more from him. He expects far more from himself.
Though the pursuit of Wiffle ball perfection is far less consequential than raising his free throw percentage or smoothing out his 3-point stroke, his all-in approach is emblematic of a larger truth about Antetokounmpo's drive.
For someone so competitive, struggling at anything -- no matter how trivial -- is unacceptable.
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WHEN CHARLES AND VERONICA Antetokounmpo were raising their sons in Sepolia -- a neighborhood in the center of Athens, Greece -- even mundane household chores would be spun into competitions. They pitched tidying up the boys' rooms as a race, with compliments and good favor as rewards. Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Giannis' older brother and Bucks teammate, said he immediately saw through the ruse and picked up his socks at his own leisure.
But Giannis couldn't help himself.
"I won," Antetokounmpo said. "But I hated [that] I took it seriously."
In the shadow of the Acropolis, in the very city that invented the decathlon, the Antetokounmpo brothers built multiday competitions of their own. At a nearby track, the Antetokounmpos ran relay races, timing each other to see who could sprint the fastest leg. Even a simple trip to the bus stop became an opportunity to race.
Having four sons under one roof came with fraternal delights such as game nights. Uno offered hours of fun, as the brothers wagered candy and bragging rights over the classic card game.
When Antetokounmpo was drafted by the Bucks in 2013 -- and his family eventually came to the United States -- game nights also made the transatlantic jump.
Antetokounmpo began to show up to his family Uno games with dark sunglasses, something that professional poker players use to shield the dilation of their pupils and protect against revealing glances. Antetokounmpo was serious about winning, and he didn't want any of his brothers to read his face.
Over the years, the game has grown to include friends and partners. To the newly initiated, including Riddlesprigger, the intensity of the family card games can be a bit off-putting. Eventually, the Antetokounmpo brothers' overwhelming gamesmanship convinced Riddlesprigger that she shouldn't bother participating.
"She never wants to play with me again," Antetokounmpo said, grinning. "Because she said me and [my brother] Alex were cheating. We weren't. We were just really good. She thought we were going to let her win and all that.
"No. If you want to win, you've got to earn it."
The sibling rivalry isn't limited to sports, chores and cards. Antetokounmpo needed only to look in a mirror to find another potential battlefield.
After a home game last December, Antetokounmpo was sitting at his locker in Fiserv Forum, next to his brother. Most of their teammates had gotten their aching knees taped up, changed into fresh shirts, picked up their custom-blended smoothies and had headed home. It wasn't uncommon for the Antetokounmpo brothers to be the last two players to walk to the garage.
But on that particular night, Antetokounmpo wasn't waiting around to talk with reporters, get in an extra weightlifting session or watch film. He was looking on as his brother groomed his dense beard.
After reflecting, the baby-faced Antetokounmpo made a matter-of-fact pledge.
"Give me two years," Antetokounmpo said, eyeing his own face and then his brother's full beard again. "Give me two years and I'll have it. I'll connect."
"It took you until you were what -- how old?" Antetokounmpo, then 25, asked his sibling.
"Until I was 27!" Thanasis exclaimed.
Giannis nodded, pleased with the accuracy of his calculation as he accepted a new challenge. There is no 10,000-hour rule for sprouting hair, and yet it was still stuck in his craw.
INSIDE AN EMPTY Nikos Galis Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens earlier this fall, Giannis Antetokounmpo was midway through a two-hour offseason workout. Usually, the arena is home to Panathinaikos B.C. On this day, it was Antetokounmpo's lab.
During this particular session, coaches worked with him as he went through a series of post-up drills and shooting exercises. The Bucks sent a rotating group of assistants to Athens to work with Antetokounmpo.
In between the most rigorous parts of the workout, Antetokounmpo would shoot a pair of free throws. That way, by the time he stepped up to the stripe, he was breathing heavily -- the way he would in a game.
Antetokounmpo added a wrinkle to the routine. If he missed his free throws, his coaches would need to run and he would need to watch. Seeing other people pay for his mistakes was torture for Antetokounmpo, and this is a common motivational strategy used by high school coaches everywhere.
That wasn't enough. He invited Riddlesprigger and their 10-month-old son, Liam, to the gym. Now, Antetokounmpo had to hit his free throws or go through the torture of watching Riddlesprigger run with Liam. It was an airtight plan to boost accountability and focus.
Until he missed.
Liam laughed piercingly as he bounced around in his mother's arms. Riddlesprigger smiled and shook her head as though she could already see teasing Antetokounmpo about it in the future.
But even activities that might seem minor are shaped to his benefit. Antetokounmpo turned his downtime in the Florida bubble into opportunities for treatment and massages, and he used breaks in the team's meal room to get in extra stretching.
For as much glee as Antetokounmpo derived from sprinting the fastest leg of the Antetokounmpo decathlon or being the king of the card table, his most competitive opponent might be himself. And there is possibly no place where he cares to win more than on the basketball court.
When Antetokounmpo tweaked his ankle in Game 3 of the Bucks' conference semifinals against the Miami Heat in September, he pushed through, had the ankle taped up and was on the court again for Game 4. Just minutes into the second quarter of that contest, he landed awkwardly on the same ankle, audibly yelping in pain as he drew the foul and crashed to the floor. He made sure to take his free throws so he wasn't immediately ruled out from returning.
The team medical staff's decision that it would be unsafe for Antetokounmpo to return to the game left him reeling. His focus immediately shifted to getting healthy enough to play in Game 5. He went on an icing routine under the direction of the Bucks' training staff. He got treatment multiple times a day and made it clear he wouldn't be sidelined prematurely.
And despite limping out of the arena after Game 4 and arriving for the next game in a walking boot, he was on the floor warming up ahead of Game 5. Ultimately, the team's medical staff decided again that it was too risky for Antetokounmpo to play.
So he sat on the bench, clad in a gray sweatsuit next to his brother, and watched the Bucks' season come to an end.
"I feel lost, to be honest with you. If it's up to me, I play with one leg," Antetokounmpo told reporters after the game.
Ten days later, Antetokounmpo added a second MVP award to his list of accolades. During his virtual MVP ceremony from Athens, he recalled that after he won the award in 2019, he told a crowd of excited Milwaukee fans that after that day, he didn't want to be called MVP until he won that honor again.
This time, the stakes have evolved.
"Don't call me MVP," Antetokounmpo said. "Don't call me two-time MVP until I am a champion."
SITTING AROUND a table in the Gran Destino Tower hotel's players' lounge inside the NBA's Orlando bubble, Antetokounmpo peered at his hand and eyed the competition: teammates Sterling Brown, Kyle Korver, Pat Connaughton and Thanasis.
For this game of Uno, Antetokounmpo ditched the dark shades, but the group still had rituals. Though there were no assigned seats, the players tended to sit in the same places every night. Antetokounmpo and Brown sat next to each other.
This wasn't any old Uno. This particular version was developed in Atlanta and made its way into the Milwaukee locker room when Korver, who played for the Hawks for five years, signed with the Bucks.
"It is speed Uno, with tons of fire in the deck," Korver said.
It's played with four decks' worth of "heat cards" -- plus-four, plus-two, wild cards, reverses and skips -- and half a deck of number cards mixed together.
They used a point system to keep track of wins. And at the end of the evening, the loser had to cough up $10.
Many high-profile NBA players seek excitement in gambling. Michael Jordan was notorious for betting several hundred thousand dollars on rounds of golf. Charles Barkley said he has lost millions gambling in Las Vegas. For Antetokounmpo, this was clearly not about the cash; nor does he have any real affinity for gambling. He is actually known to be quite frugal.
One night, Korver recalled, Antetokounmpo was down to his final card when Brown threw down a plus-four.
"But then every single person had a plus-four," Korver said. "So he went from Uno -- thought he had it -- and then he ended up picking up 24 cards.
"I don't know what he is saying when he gets mad in Greek."
While his teammates are thrilled to beat him at something, Antetokounmpo cherishes the stakes. There isn't a space, venue or room that he can't turn into an arena for friendly combat. Every aspect of his life, from growing up in Greece to pursuing an NBA championship, has been fueled by it.
"You wake up and you do whatever it takes to be better," Antetokounmpo said. "It is the whole day, the whole year, the whole life."