Why Giannis Antetokounmpo’s comments about playoff exit are tough to swallow

The Milwaukee Bucks had the NBA’s best record during the regular season and came into the playoffs with the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, taking on the eighth-seeded Miami Heat.

Five games later, Milwaukee finds itself on the losing end of a 4-1 series and out of the playoffs. From a potential NBA champion contender to bounced in the first round, it is hard to see this playoff run as anything but an abject failure for the Bucks.

Well, it’s hard to see it as anything but failure unless you’re Giannis Antetokounmpo, who waxed poetic after the game about the path of being a champion and how it’s not always a straight-line process.

“It’s not a failure; it’s steps to success,” Antetokounmpo said, according to ESPN. “There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me?”

“It’s a wrong question; there’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days. Some days you’re able to be successful, some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. And that’s what sports is about. You don’t always win. Sometimes other people win. And this year somebody else is going to win, simple as that.”

While that’s certainly an optimistic way to look at it and Giannis has earned that right as a former NBA champion and one of the best players on the planet, Bucks fans hoping for a championship run would likely disagree with his sentiment.

In Game 5, the game the Bucks needed to stay alive in the postseason, Milwaukee blew a 16-point fourth-quarter lead, allowing a molten-hot Jimmy Butler to tie the game with half a second left in the fourth quarter. Antetokounmpo did score 38 points of his own to go with 20 rebounds, but he was just 10 of 23 on free-throw attempts.

He also shot just 1-of-9 in the fourth quarter, which played a huge role in allowing the Heat back into the contest. Giannis may not like the characterization, but this was a failure by the Bucks in almost every way.