Photos: YouTube Screenshots\NBA.com
MILWAUKEE – The Bucks had a bounce about them at their Media Day: figuratively, from last week’s acquisition of All-Star guard Damian Lillard from Portland; and literally, in how much better two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo’s left knee feels. Here are key quotes and moments from those two and others Monday at the team’s practice facility.
• Seven-time All-NBA guard Lillard is as eager to pair with the Bucks and Antetokounmpo as they are to add his scoring and knack for clutch heroics. This is a two-way street.
“It’s public record that I’ve always mentioned, if I could team up with one person, it would be [Antetokounmpo],” Lillard said. “The kind of attention he’s going to get is only going to make the game easier and more simple for me. And because of the way I do impose myself and how I attack games, he’s going to have the kind of opportunities I think he hasn’t had as well.”
• And it sounds like Lillard isn’t nervous about his arrival deepening a championship-or-bust mood around the Bucks. This represents his best chance to win a ring – and theirs to win another – in the Greek Freak era.
“In my career, in my life, I’ve never been a part of any situation that was not an underdog. From my AAU program… to Weber State… drafted to Portland… I’ve done a lot more overachieving in my career than living up to what was expected.”
