Giannis Antetokounmpo is still one of the most electrifying players in the NBA. He has won league MVP twice and NBA Finals MVP once, and his athleticism and skill are still astounding. He is also one of the most incredible stories of globalization in the history of the league, going from an impoverished childhood in Greece to the top of the sports world. A new feature-length documentary called Giannis: The Marvelous Journey, now streaming on Prime Video, gives us a full look at Giannis’s life and career.
GIANNIS: THE MARVELOUS JOURNEY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: It’s well known that Giannis Antetokounmpo went from poverty to global superstardom. His Nigerian immigrant parents were living without citizenship or work permits in Greece when he was born; they struggled to get by. As a teenager, he discovered basketball and everything changed. Emotional interviews with Giannis, his brothers, mother Veronica and people from throughout his amazing life track this ascent.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There are many athlete-biography documentaries available on streaming services these days which mostly serve as infomercials aimed at burning their subjects’ images into your brain forever but Giannis: The Marvelous Journey stands apart because Giannis’ story is so much more dramatic and compelling than those other athletes’.
Performance Worth Watching
In addition to Thanasis (who plays for Greek club Panathinaikos) and Kostas (who played for several teams last season before signing with the Los Angeles Lakers), there’s Alex Antetokounmpo (who played high-school ball at Dominican High School here in Milwaukee). But Veronica steals every scene she appears in; talking about how tough it was for her husband Charles (who died suddenly two years ago) to leave Nigeria and move to Greece while she stayed behind with their eldest child, Francis, is just heart-breaking.
Memorable Dialogue
“People might say I’m one of the best players in the NBA right now but I don’t see it, I don’t feel it,” Giannis says, shaking his head at the camera. “I’m just a hard worker that’s trying to survive because I’m scared of going back; I’m scared of losing all this.” If these words came from another athlete, it might come off as false humility; when they come from Giannis, you absolutely believe he means every word.
Our Take
One of my favorite moments with Giannis Antetokounmpo wasn’t a dunk. It wasn’t an award. It wasn’t even a win. It was in 2021 shortly after he brought Milwaukee its first NBA championship in half a century and he was sitting in a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru livestreaming on social media. He had been asked what he wanted for breakfast after his celebratory night ended; his usual order is 50 chicken minis “Not 49,” he said, “not 51” and he was so damn nice about asking if it was OK if the drive-thr…
During an interview in the film, Giannis tells of a moment of realization. He was watching the 2006 FIBA World Championship, where Greece stunned Team USA with Sofoklis Schortsanitis, a Greek player of Cameroonian heritage. A person who looked like him being cheered on by his own country was game-changing, he says: “He’s Black, and he’s playing for the Greek national team? Wow…”
He starts researching at internet cafes. He looks up how much Kobe Bryant is paid $28 million or $30 million, at the time and realizes just how lucrative the sport can be. “You know that you could take care of your family,” Antetokounmpo says. “I took it serious. The dream was: I have to put everything I got into this because I might not make thirty million dollars. I might make a hundred thousand dollars but it’s better than getting evicted for 230 euros.”
The rest is history stardom on Greece’s national team, selection in the first round of the 2013 NBA draft, on-court success that has rarely met any bounds for what a big man can do on both ends since. It will be hard to find a more remarkable life story told as wonderfully as Giannis: The Improbable Rise does anytime soon in sports documentaries or anywhere else.
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