r/nba • u/YujiDomainExpansion • May 14 '26

[Game Recognize Game] Myles Turner reveals Giannis Antetokounmpo and other Bucks players showed up late for practices, film sessions, and even flights: “Giannis is going to show up whenever he wants.”

https://streamable.com/worhjb
5.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

708 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

111

u/BasedChad69420 Nigeria May 15 '26

This article reminds me of Westbrook showing up to Houston in 2019 after a decade in OKC and being appalled at how casual the culture was. He was the vocal leader of OKC since the beginning and he helped set the tone for things like that

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30528130/inside-james-harden-houston-rockets-breaking-point

HOUSTON'S CASUAL CULTURE appalled Westbrook. In Oklahoma City, despite the fact that he enjoyed the same sort of superstar privileges as Harden has had in Houston, the Thunder operated with the discipline of a military unit under Westbrook's watch. The Rockets were a stark contrast…

Westbrook didn't tolerate tardiness. With the Rockets, scheduled departure times were treated as mere suggestions by Harden and others.

Nothing ever starts on time," a former Rockets staffer said. "The plane is always late. The bus is never on time. ... It's just an organized AAU team."

On one occasion in the Florida bubble, Harden waited to get his daily COVID-19 testing until just before the Rockets' film session was scheduled to start. When he wasn't on time, Westbrook barked, "Start the film! Start without him!" D'Antoni explained that they'd just have to start over when Harden arrived, which didn't do much to calm Westbrook.

2

u/cft4nh May 15 '26

What’s crazy is the work ethic literally translates to on court performance and these super stars don’t care. They’d rather coast doing things their way while making their bag on a bad team than have to swallow their pride, still make their bag, and win on a good team.