{"id":536581,"date":"2026-01-14T18:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/536581\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T18:45:11","slug":"central-notes-giannis-jenkins-pistons-j-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/536581\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Notes: Giannis, Jenkins, Pistons, J. Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milwaukee fans booed the Bucks during Tuesday\u2019s blowout loss against Minnesota, and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> gave the same reaction to the home crowd, writes Jamal Collier of ESPN<\/a>. After scoring a basket and getting knocked to the court on a foul early in the third quarter, Antetokounmpo did a two-thumbs-down gesture and booed the fans while sitting under the basket.<\/p>\n

Antetokounmpo has used the same gesture to respond to jeering crowds on the road, and he explained, \u201cWhenever I get booed, I boo back,\u201d regardless of where he\u2019s playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play basketball for my teammates,\u201d he said. \u201cI play basketball for myself and my family. When people don\u2019t believe in me, I don\u2019t tend to be with them. I tend to do what I\u2019m here to do, what I\u2019m good at. \u2026 It won\u2019t change home or away. But yeah, I\u2019ve never been a part of something like that before and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair. I don\u2019t. But everybody has their opinion to do what they want to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to tell them what to do and how they should act when we don\u2019t play hard. Or when we lose games, or when we\u2019re not where we\u2019re supposed to be. I don\u2019t think anybody has the right to tell me how I should act on (a) basketball court after I\u2019ve been here 13 years. And I\u2019m basically the all-time leader in everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although it may be an isolated incident, Antetokounmpo\u2019s reaction has to be disturbing for a front office that has been going out of its way to keep its star player happy. The Bucks are viewed as buyers heading into the trade deadline in hopes of upgrading their roster to make a postseason run, but Tuesday\u2019s loss dropped them to 17-23 and left them 1 1\/2 games out of the final play-in spot.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more from the Central Division:<\/p>\n

Pistons guard Daniss Jenkins<\/a> is limited to 50 games on his two-way contract, and Omari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press<\/a> points out in a subscriber-only mailbag column that he\u2019s likely to reach that limit on February 5, which is also the trade deadline. There\u2019s a good chance Detroit will open up a roster spot and give a standard contract to Jenkins, who has emerged as a rotation player in his second NBA season, with Sankofa speculating that it\u2019s likely to be a one- or two-year deal.
\nHunter Patterson of The Athletic<\/a> examines ways the Pistons can use a Traded Player Exception that allows them to take on an additional $14.3MM in salary. He cites Bucks forward Bobby Portis<\/a>, Spurs center Kelly Olynyk<\/a>, Hawks wing Luke Kennard<\/a>, Celtics forward Sam Hauser<\/a> and Mavericks wing Max Christie<\/a> as potential targets. If Detroit doesn\u2019t use it in a deal by the deadline, the TPE will remain in effect through July 7.
\nPacers coach Rick Carlisle has singled out the play of third-year forward Jarace Walker<\/a> after each of the last two games, per Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star<\/a>. Walker contributed 11 points and seven rebounds in 25 minutes off the bench in Monday\u2019s win over Boston. \u201cHe\u2019s playing with force,\u201d Carlisle said. \u201cHe\u2019s playing with force at both ends. He\u2019s done a lot of good things defensively. He\u2019s rebounding the ball. Stepping into the right shots. As a third-year player, things are going to slow down as you progress in your career. Reads become more obvious. He\u2019s making good decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Milwaukee fans booed the Bucks during Tuesday\u2019s blowout loss against Minnesota, and Giannis Antetokounmpo gave the same reaction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,507,6101,296,188,3860,123,643,2289,1171,7139,6,297,2080],"class_list":{"0":"post-536581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bobby-portis","10":"tag-daniss-jenkins","11":"tag-detroit","12":"tag-detroit-pistons","13":"tag-detroitpistons","14":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","15":"tag-jarace-walker","16":"tag-kelly-olynyk","17":"tag-luke-kennard","18":"tag-max-christie","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-pistons","21":"tag-sam-hauser"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115894938869939588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}