NBA: Antetokounmpo Vows To Visit, Identify With Nigerian Roots

Milwaukee Bucks forward of Nigerian descent, Giannis Antetokounmpo is eager to get back to his roots reports Completesports.com.

Antetokounmpo, who is an MVP candidate this season in the NBA stressed that he won’t be forgetting his roots any time soon and has plans to go to Nigeria, where both his mother and father were raised.

The 23-year-old Antetokounmpo was born in Athens, Greece, three years after his parents moved there from Lagos, Nigeria.

“I want to see where my family comes from, where my mom was raised, see my family, see where my dad was raised. That is very important. I hope my kids can do the same thing for me,” Antetokounmpo said in an interview with The Undefeated.

“Obviously, I am going to have kids that are going to grow up in the U.S., but one day I hope they can go back [to Greece] and visit and see where I grew up, the playground I was playing.”

Antetokounmpo has averaged 27.0 points, 12.6 rebounds, 6.0 assists, 1.5 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game in the NBA this season.

The Greek Freak as he is fondly called and the Milwaukee Bucks will look to get back on track on Thursday against the Indiana Pacers after losing two games to the lowly Phoenix Suns and the Utah Jazz.

“We (will) bounce back like we always do – to get the next one, get back on track vs. Indiana.”

“It’s kind of hard to take in that we lost to Phoenix twice, but at the end of the day, they played better than us.”

“We’ve got to do a better job just closing out the game. We cannot be messing around with the game. We did it the last two games – we did it in Utah, we did it (Monday). We’ve just got to learn from it.”

By Johnny Edward.