Giannis Antetokounmpo Says He Doesn't Have Access to Basketball Hoop Amid Hiatus
Milwaukee Bucks stars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton said Friday they haven't been getting any shots up during the coronavirus pandemic—which caused an indefinite delay of the 2019-20 NBA season—because they don't have basketball hoops at their homes.
Matt Velazquez of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provided the update.
Middleton noted a neighbor does have a rim, but he's opted to work out and keep his dribbling fresh at his own house amid social-distancing guidelines.
Antetokounmpo (29.6 points per game) and Middleton (21.1) were the Bucks' two leading scorers when the NBA went on hiatus. Milwaukee owned the best record in the league at 53-12 with 17 games remaining on its regular-season slate.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN's Rachel Nichols in mid-March there's no definite timetable for a return to action and he laid out the next steps:
"What are the conditions we need for the league to restart? I would say I'm looking at three different things. One is, when can we restart and operate as we've known it with 19,000 fans in buildings? ... Option two is, should we consider restarting without fans, and what would that mean? Because, presumably, if we had a group of players, and staff around them, and you could test them and follow some sort of protocol, doctors and health officials may say it's safe to play.
"A third option that we are looking at now ... the impact on the national psyche of having no sports programming on television. And one of the things we've been talking about are, are there conditions in which a group of players could compete—maybe it's for a giant fundraiser or just the collective good of the people—where you take a subset of players and, is there a protocol where they can be tested and quarantined and isolated in some way, and they could compete against one another? Because people are stuck at home, and I think they need a diversion. They need to be entertained."
If the 2019-20 season eventually resumes, the Bucks will join the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers as the chief championship contenders heading into the playoffs.
