“Annoyed that wasn’t in time for me” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar admits to being envious of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s on-court freedom
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar admitted that he sometimes envies Giannis Antetokounmpo because, unlike him, Giannis has the freedom to rebound and drive the ball down the court. Replying, he stated that if Kareem had that freedom, he would have had 52,000 points.
Giannis and Kareem
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a dominant force on the court who almost played with the opponent’s feelings when he got going. However, with time and changing rules, the game has evolved. When Kareem played for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, the rules of the game were a little different. In fact, the NBA legend said in a recent interview that while he admires Giannis Antetokounmpo, he is also jealous of the freedom he gets to play with.
The rules of the game have changed, sometimes because new rules make more sense and sometimes because of the players’ utter dominance on the court. Modern NBA is more focused on benefiting the offense rather than the defense. Kareem stated that if he played the game today, he would like to do things that Greek Freak does on the court. “I’d sort of like to do some of the things that he [does],” he said, speaking a couple of days after his scoring record was broken.
He added that when he was playing, players were not allowed to take the ball down the court after rebounding it. “You get the rebound, you better not try and take it down to the other end of the court if you’re a frontline player’ that was like gospel when I played. Giannis is going through all of that and opened the game up. So I’m happy he’s done that, but I’m annoyed that wasn’t in time for me to try to get in on the fun,” he added. Kareem would definitely have had a lot of fun doing that, based on his comments.
Giannis Antetokounmpo says Kareem would have had 52,000 points in the NBA
When asked about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s comments, Giannis Antetokounmpo said that his coach has always encouraged him to bring the ball down the floor. However, when asked if Kareem could flourish in Giannis’ place in modern basketball, the NBA champion had high praises for The Captain. “Obviously, Kareem could bring the ball down the floor and create for himself, and get people go out of the way or ask for a pick and roll — he’d probably have 52,000 points. It would take LeBron eight more years to break that record,” Giannis said.
Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said that it is hard to imagine Kareem bringing the ball up the floor because of the evolution of the game. “I can’t imagine Kareem bringing it up. I’m sure he probably could, he did everything else,” Budenholzer said. “I don’t know when the evolution started, but certainly Giannis is just incredibly unique, I think, to this league right now,” he added.
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Nandjee Ranjan
(488 Articles Published)