By Ike Mgbatogu
Staff Writer

Onumba.com, USA –—— The wait, the speculations, the debates, the pundit’s analysis and the divergent opinions on where he would take his talents are all over.

But for Nigerian NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, the big decision marks the beginning of the next chapter of his stellar basketball career as he heads to Miami Heat where he would join forces with another Nigerian star Bam Adebayo.

Coming from Greece, where he was born to Nigerian parents of both Igbo and Yoruba ethnicities, Antetokounmpo was quickly monickered the ‘Greek Freak’ because of the enormous challenge for pundits, broadcasters and reporters pronouncing his last name.

And that last name, with all of the setbacks associated with it, highlights just how far this once scrawny dude has come.

The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) played for the Milwaukee Bucks since entering the league in 2013, quickly developing a reputation as a tough, versatile and dominant player that easily ranks him alongside only a handful of players in that elite orbit.

But soon after joining the NBA, and emerging as a formidable juggernaut, Antetokounmpo was hit with a setback after the death of his father Charles in 2017 at the age of 54 of heart attack. When he bagged his first NBA MVP trophy, Antetokounmpo reflected on a nostalgic mix of emotions fueled by the good news of his MVP accomplishment without his father.

Antetokounmpo, 31, credits his quantum leap to superstardom to his late dad who constantly encouraged and pushed him to strive to be the best. Now he is. A lengthy tapestry of his accomplishments has catapulted him to the epitome of basketball in a league packed with the best players on the planet.

He was selected 15th in the 2013 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks.

Gianni’s last name was somewhat a troping distraction, which obscured his epic talent resulting in a muted growth initially. He unleashed his talent game after game, but the pundit’s hiccup was their lazy reluctance to look past his last name.  It severely truncated the media hype of his game.

But while his rise in the NBA wasn’t exactly meteoric, people taking notice of it made it appear as though it was a quantum leap into superstardom.

His coach at the time was Jason Kidd who knew precisely why Antetokounmpo was not a household name. Kidd expressed the view that the ‘Greek Freak’ was good all along, only he was not accorded his props earlier in his career.

A reporter asked Kidd why Antetokounmpo was not receiving his props.

The former Dallas Marvericks great replied: “his last name.”

Because of his long last name, which to most Americans looks more like an alphabet soup than a last name, Antetokounmpo toiled in obscurity, despite his visible superior stats, impressive production and all-round spectacular showings.

But after the fog of his last name that once eclipsed his game was cleared, thanks to reporters and pundits for discarding Antetokounmpo in favor of just “Greek Freak” and “Giannis, it became easy to inject his name into analysis, which opened up his on-court brilliance and super star level production to shine unobstructed. Soon after, it didn’t take long for Antetokounmpo to become a household name.

Antetokounmpo enjoys dual citizenship of both Nigeria and Greece.

His father is Yoruba while his mother is Igbo.