For a player who is still playing and right in the middle of his prime to rank this highly for me should tell you everything you need to know about how good Giannis Antetokounmpo is.
Usually, these rankings are built on completed careers. We know the full story, we’ve seen the player’s peak and we know exactly where their résumé ends. With Giannis, we’re ranking a player at #2 while he’s still writing his.
Two MVPs. A Defensive Player of the Year. An NBA championship. A Finals MVP. And one of the greatest closeout performances in NBA Finals history. The scary part? He isn’t done yet.
From an unknown teenager out of Greece to one of the most dominant forces basketball has ever seen, Giannis has already accomplished enough to stand above almost every power forward who has played this game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is our #2 greatest power forward of all time.
From Greece to Milwaukee
When Milwaukee selected Giannis with the 15th overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, nobody knew exactly what he would become. He was incredibly raw. The physical tools were obvious, but the player Milwaukee drafted looked nothing like the force that would eventually terrorize the NBA.
Giannis became bigger, stronger and more skilled while retaining the speed and athleticism of a much smaller player. Before long, grabbing a defensive rebound and watching a nearly seven-foot Giannis take the ball coast-to-coast became a normal part of NBA basketball.
There wasn’t really a blueprint for stopping him.
There still isn’t.
Becoming the Greek Freak
By the late 2010s, Giannis had gone from an intriguing prospect to one of the best players alive. His first MVP came in 2018-19, when he averaged 27.7 points, 12.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game while leading Milwaukee to 60 wins.
Then he somehow got better.
The following season, Giannis averaged 29.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game as Milwaukee once again finished with the NBA’s best record. He won his second consecutive MVP, but that wasn’t all.
Giannis was also named Defensive Player of the Year, putting together one of the rarest individual seasons in NBA history. He became just the third player ever to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, joining only Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon.
That’s the company we’re talking about.
At that point, the individual greatness wasn’t really debatable. Giannis had reached the top of the NBA offensively while simultaneously being recognized as its best defensive player.
There was only one thing missing.
A championship.
The 2021 Championship Run
Milwaukee entered the 2021 postseason carrying years of disappointment. Giannis had won the awards. The Bucks had dominated regular seasons. But every playoff exit brought the same question.
Could Giannis lead Milwaukee to a championship?
The answer came emphatically.
The Bucks survived a seven-game battle against Kevin Durant and the Brooklyn Nets before defeating Atlanta in the Eastern Conference Finals. But Milwaukee’s championship hopes appeared to be in serious trouble when Giannis suffered a frightening knee injury against the Hawks.
Some wondered whether his postseason was finished. Instead, he returned for Game 1 of the NBA Finals and produced the series that defined his career.
50 Points to Win It All
Milwaukee fell behind the Phoenix Suns 2-0 in the Finals. Giannis responded by putting together one of the greatest stretches of basketball of his career.
He scored 41 points in Game 3 to get Milwaukee back into the series. In Game 4 came one of the defining defensive plays of the Finals, when Giannis recovered to block Deandre Ayton at the rim. Then in Game 5 came the steal, the transition run and the unforgettable alley-oop finish that put Milwaukee on the verge of a championship.
But Game 6 was the masterpiece.
With an opportunity to win Milwaukee’s first NBA championship in 50 years, Giannis delivered 50 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks. He even went 17-for-19 from the free-throw line, turning what had often been considered one of his biggest weaknesses into a weapon on the biggest night of his career.
I have this as the greatest single-game NBA Finals performance of all time. Fifty points in a championship-clinching game, with five blocks on the other end, while carrying the pressure of trying to bring Milwaukee its first title in half a century. When the championship was there for the taking, Giannis delivered one of the greatest performances basketball has ever seen.
Milwaukee won 105-98, and Giannis was an NBA champion. After averaging 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game in the series, there was only one choice for Finals MVP.
The Greek Freak had reached the mountaintop.
Dominance on Both Ends
What separates Giannis from most superstars is that his dominance isn’t limited to one side of the floor. Offensively, getting downhill with Giannis feels almost unfair. His combination of size, length, strength and speed allows him to cover enormous amounts of space in only a few steps.
Defensively, he can protect the rim, switch onto smaller players, erase mistakes as a help defender and completely change what an offense wants to do. That’s what makes the combination of multiple MVPs and a Defensive Player of the Year so special.
At his best, Giannis doesn’t just dominate a game.
He can dominate both sides of it.
Already an All-Time Great
Giannis’ career is still being written, which makes his place on this list even more remarkable. He already owns a résumé most players could spend an entire career chasing.
NBA Champion
NBA Finals MVP
2-time NBA MVP
Defensive Player of the Year
NBA Most Improved Player
Multiple All-NBA First Team selections
Multiple All-Defensive First Team selections
NBA 75th Anniversary Team
The accolades tell part of the story, but Giannis’ journey makes it even more remarkable. He entered the league as a skinny, relatively unknown prospect from Greece and developed into one of the most physically dominant players basketball has ever seen.
He brought a championship back to Milwaukee. He delivered 50 points in the game that finished the job. He reached the highest level offensively and defensively.
And unlike everyone we’ve covered so far in this power forward series, Giannis still has chapters left to write. Another MVP? Another championship? Another Finals MVP? None of it feels impossible.
And I believe that now that Giannis has taken his talents to South Beach, joining Bam Adebayo and Klay Thompson in Miami, he will continue adding to an already historic résumé. Miami gives him another opportunity to compete for championships, and I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of Giannis adding hardware to his trophy case.
There is only one power forward we have ahead of him.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is our #2 greatest power forward of all time.
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