A history of Giannis Antetokounmpo telling dad jokes at NBA media day

Giannis Antetokounmpo has a media day tradition: telling jokes. These aren’t good jokes, or even mediocre jokes, or even the jokes that are lame but just clever enough that you can respect the craft. Giannis tells the corniest dad jokes ever.

“You guys hear of the movie ‘Constipation’? No? That’s because it hasn’t come out yet!”

Giannis decided to weave dad joke with bathroom humor for his 2017 effort. The best part of the delivery isn’t the slow wind up or the antagonizing pause when everyone already worked out the punchline, it’s that run away. Giannis sprinted away like a kid who stole a cookie from the cookie jar.

We’re being generous on the grading here. There’s no point in comparing Giannis to comedy luminaries. Instead we’re just going to base this on what we feel Giannis’ ceiling for comedy is, and how close he came to reaching it.

Joke: 2/5
Delivery: 4/5

“Knock, knock?”
“Who’s there?”
“Obama.”
“Obama who?”
“OBAMAAAA SELF ....”

This is a bad joke, but not paralyzingly bad — IF Giannis has nailed the execution. Hitting the punchline was the key to this all working, but he broke midway through and couldn’t recover. Pointing out that nobody laughed was the best part.

Joke: 3/5
Delivery: 3/5

This one wasn’t captured on video, but it might have been Giannis’ best joke. Before beginning his 2015 interview, he told the media on hand that he might have problems answering their questions.

“You guys take it easy on me, because two months now I spent in Greece and I forgot how to speak English.”

Not knowing how to respond reporters took time to ask questions, not knowing if they’d get material they could use — at which point Giannis rattled off detailed answers about his shooting mechanics, time with Greece in EuroBasket, and his goals for the 2015-16 season.

This was a distinct diversion from his dad joke structure, and a little mean — but we approve.

Joke: 4/5
Delivery: 5/5

Another gem sadly lost to time, Giannis walked up in the middle of Zaza Pachulia’s interview and handed him a preview of the Giannis bobblehead fans would get later that season.

Confused and searching for meaning, all Pachulia could do is stare at the thing and try to wonder why. Later, when fans were wondering if the joke sparked some tension, this happened.

Cat and Dog Fight is the best fake name for an Eastern European reality show that I would have 100 percent believed existed until you told me Giannis invented it. The fact that he pranked Zaza puts this joke over the top.

Joke: 5/5
Execution: 5/5