Throughout his ten-year career, Giannis Antetokounmpo has achieved many notable feats on the basketball court, most notably taking home two regular season NBA MVP trophies, an NBA Finals MVP and NBA finals championship.
Antetokounmpo is the Greek language translation of the Yoruba name ‘Adetokunbo’
The 29-year-old forward for the Milwaukee Bucks accomplished a childhood dream during the previous offseason by travelling to Nigeria, the country of his late father, Charles, and mother, Veronica. In 1991, his parents relocated to Athens, Greece from Lagos, Nigeria, in search of better employment prospects. In Nigeria “it was very hard to get a job,” Charles Antetokounmpo stated in a 2013 interview with NPR. In 2017, at the age of 54, he passed away after a heart attack.
The parents left their firstborn kid, Francis, with his grandparents and moved to Greece. Reason why? “This is going to take us to a greater place in the future,” Veronica, his mother, told to Yahoo! Sports in 2022. “Then, this is where we are now today. We are very amazing.”
Along with Giannis, older brother Thanasis played for the Bucks during their 2021 NBA title run. Meanwhile, younger brother Alex is presently a player for the Bucks’ NBA G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd. Kostas, the second brother, is currently a basketball player in Greece. He won an NBA championship with the Lakers in 2020.
A recent documentary titled “Ugo,” which was made in collaboration with WhatsApp, documents the NBA player’s August vacation to Nigeria with his mother. The name of the thirty-one-minute video is derived from Antetokounmpo’s Nigerian birth name. The documentary, which was directed by Rick Famuyiwa (“The Mandalorian”), may be watched for free on YouTube worldwide.
In the movie, Antetokounmpo meets cousins, uncles, aunts, and other family members while immersing himself in the environment, dancing, dining, and mingling with kids on the basketball court and soccer pitch. “A lot of people know that I represent the Greek national team, and they call me ‘The Greek Freak,’ but they’ve never seen this side of me,” he stated to USA TODAY. “My parents are Nigerian. When I was growing up … it was a Nigerian household. I grew up in Nigerian culture.”
For Antetokounmpo, having his mother with him added a particular touch to the trip. She was also “a great storyteller,” he said, explaining “everything about the things that they experienced and how hard (his parents’) journey was, from Nigeria going to Greece and how their life was.”
Giannis is having a spicy time in Nigeria,
Antetokounmpo assumed he was ready for Nigerian food when it came time to feast, but at a family get-together, he was taken by surprise. As the food was being prepared (pepper soup, jollof rice, and semolina fufu), a well-known chef spoke up and said, “Pepper soup? Yeah, I eat pepper soup all the time.”
Antetokounmpo now acknowledges that his mother gave it a moderately spicy taste for him and the Bucks coaches, among others. However, he noted that part of the documentary crew were sampling the cuisine at the family gathering in Nigeria, and “they are all wheezing because of the spices,” he remarked.
Nevertheless, Antetokounmpo realised he couldn’t back down because his family was present. “I can’t be soft. I’m a very competitive guy,” he said. “I cannot be like, ‘I cannot handle this.’ So I’m eating the pepper soup and I’m sweating.”
When asked if he likes it, “I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ but I’m telling my mom, ‘Mama, I need some milk’.”
“That’s probably one of the best moments ever in my life, for your mom or your parents to appreciate (what you have done). It was very very, very, very humbling,” remarked Antetokounmpo, who claims to have been using WhatsApp to stay in touch with family members.
How to view the just released Giannis Antetokounmpo documentary
In selected markets, “Ugo” is available for free viewing on Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. The 2022 Magic Johnson documentary “They Call Me Magic,” directed by Nigerian-American Famuyiwa, is available for streaming on Apple TV+. The filming marked Famuyiwa’s first trip back to Nigeria since he departed as a teenager.
Are you interested in learning more about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s life narrative, family, and NBA career to date? In addition, a number of other videos have been released. Giannis: The Marvellous Journey is a feature-length documentary that will debut on Prime Video on February 19. The movie also serves as the debut of Improbable Media, Antetokounmpo’s new media venture.
You can view the following videos about Giannis below:
A full-length documentary titled “Rise” (2022) tells the tale of the Antetokounmpo siblings’ journey from Greece to the NBA (view on Disney+).
Watch “Naija Odyssey” (2022), a 12-minute documentary that Giannis Antetokounmpo produced using WhatsApp, to learn more about his life narrative (available on Prime Video).
Watch the 21-minute TNT-produced short film “Finding Giannis” (2019) to see how Antetokounmpo was found on YouTube.
