Giannis Antetokounmpo gave a brilliant answer about what it means to fail in sports

We’ve become conditioned by Giannis Antetokounmpo to expect light, fun-loving post-game interviews that give us joy, but Wednesday night was very different. A crushing 4-1 series loss to the Heat ended the Bucks’ season, and when Giannis was asked if the season was a “failure,” it evoked a serious reaction.

“Oh my god. You asked me the same question last year, Eric ... okay? Do you get a promotion every year? In your job? No, right? So every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal — which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, provide a house for them, or take care of your parents. You work towards a goal — it’s not a failure. It’s steps to success. I don’t want to make it personal. There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me. I’m asking you a question, yes or no? Exactly. So why you ask me that question? It’s the wrong question.”

The first part of Giannis’ quote came off very defensive, and I get it. This was a crushing loss for the Bucks in a season that carried a weight of expectation. Individually the season ended in crushing fashion. Giannis effectively missed three games of the series with the Heat, returning in Game 4 with a triple double, before posting a monster stat line on Wednesday, but struggling down the stretch in both his shooting, and turnovers — which created too big of a hole for the Bucks to escape from.

Then Giannis got philosophical about the nature of winning in sports.

“There’s no failure in sports. There’s good days, bad days, so days you are able to be successful — some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. That’s what sports is about. You don’t always win — so other people are going to win, simple as that. We’re going to come back next year, try to be better, try to build good habits , try to play better. Not having 10 days straight of playing bad basketball, and hopefully we can win a championship. So 50 years from 1970-2021 that we didn’t win a championship, it was 50 years of failure? No, it was not. It was steps to it. We were able to win one, hopefully we’re able to win another one.”

It’s an interesting conversation. On the one hand I absolutely understand where Giannis is coming from. The 24-hour news cycle has conditioned us so much to view everything as a binary that there’s this pervasive idea that “win a championship or nothing” is the norm. There is an obvious reality that only one team can win, and that hoisting trophies in any sport is extremely difficult — so being a “failure” isn’t the right way to look at it.

That said, 2022-23 for the Bucks definitely ended in disappointment, which is a very different term. This was a team that finished 58-24, 1st not just in the East, but the entire NBA. Milwaukee entered the season as a favorite to win it all, and came away being bounced in the first round by the Heat who squeaked into the playoffs as a seven seed.

Regardless of how we define the season for the Bucks, it’s nice to have Giannis pushing the conversation forward and challenging how we think about sports — without breaking everything down into it’s most-digestible sound bytes.