The two Greek brothers who helped the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team win their first NBA Championship in 50 years have said that they want to take the trophy back to the Athenian neighbourhood in which they grew up.
Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo grew up in the Athens area of Sepolia and wish to show the trophy to the residents. Greece has a very large basketball following, who watch both domestic Greek basketball games and US NBA games.
The brothers grew up to Nigerian immigrant parents and made a living selling souvenirs on the street before their basketball skills took them to superstardom.
Their father was only granted Greek citizenship in 2013 after spending years in the country struggling to make a living.
Giannis, nicknamed the 'Greek Freak', scored 50 points in the final game of the championship and won the MVP, Most Valuable Player award.
Giannis told reporters:
"I am very, very happy that one of the biggest trophies in the world is in Greece right now. It's an incredible thing. We don't know how many days we'll stay, but we definitely want to take it back to Sepolia and the places we grew up."
"This journey has been crazy. If you told me eight years ago that I'd be in this position, along with Thanasis, and we'd have the NBA trophy with us, and that we can take it anywhere we wanted, I'd say you're crazy. But it's all been done with hard work – and we haven't stopped. We don't stop, as a family. That's what we saw all our lives, our parents never stopped, we'd get back home after school, after practice and we saw our parents constantly working, every day to feed us."
A giant mural of Giannis alongside a crest of the Milwaukee Bucks team has now been placed on a wall in Sepolia, highlighting the achievement of the champ.
[h/t: Reuters]
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