NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo is not happy that Milwaukee Bucks fans booed the team on Tuesday (1/13) against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With the Bucks down by more than 30 points heading into halftime against the Timberwolves, the fans at Fiserv Forum booed the team as it exited the court.
After Antetokounmpo scored the first basket of the third quarter, the NBA legend booed the crowd back and put two thumbs down.
“Whenever I get booed, I boo back,” Giannis Antetokounmpo said, via ESPN. “It doesn’t matter. I play basketball for my teammates. I play basketball for myself and my family. When people don’t believe in me, I don’t tend to be with them. I tend to do what I’m here to do, what I’m good at. … It won’t change home or away. But yeah, I’ve never been a part of something like that before and I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t. But everybody has their opinion to do what they want to do.
“I’m not going to tell them what to do and how they should act when we don’t play hard. Or when we lose games, or when we’re not where we’re supposed to be. I don’t think anybody has the right to tell me how I should act on [a] basketball court after I’ve been here 13 years. And I’m basically the all-time leader in everything.”
The Bucks lost to the Timberwolves by a final score of 139-106. They are now 17-23 on the season.
If the regular season ended today, Milwaukee wouldn’t even be in the NBA play-in tournament.
“Obviously you’re frustrated,” Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “I think we didn’t play hard. I think we didn’t do the right things. We didn’t play as a team. It’s not much you can take away from this game. You just got to kind of forget about it. Take all the things that you did new well, try to improve on it and go to the next one. But the effort was low, you cannot have that. You cannot have that.”
Antetokounmpo recently said he will never request a trade from the Bucks, who won the 2021 championship against the Phoenix Suns but have won just one playoff series since then.
A future Hall of Famer, Antetokounmpo is averaging 29.1 points, 9.7 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game this season.