It’s easy to forget now, but when Giannis Antetokounmpo first showed up in Milwaukee, he wasn’t Giannis yet. He was a skinny, scared kid from Greece who barely spoke English and had no idea who most of his new teammates were. Including one veteran who took offense to that.
Antetokounmpo told the story recently to longtime Bucks announcer Jim Paschke. It was his first summer scrimmage, August 2013, and somebody pointed him toward a guy named OJ Mayo. First problem: they were saying his name wrong. Or Giannis was hearing it wrong.
“They told me like, ‘Hey, Giannis, you’re with OJ. OJ Mayo,'” Antetokounmpo recalled. “I looked and I said, ‘Who’s OJ?'”
Mayo didn’t find it funny. Not even a little bit.
“This m********** don’t know my name?” Mayo said, right there in front of everybody.
Giannis walked over and apologized. “Sorry, I never watched,” he said. And he meant it. He genuinely hadn’t watched enough NBA basketball to know who OJ Mayo was. That’s how green he was. That’s how far outside the American basketball culture he had been living in Greece.
Two Guys, Two Different Worlds
Mayo came in with serious hype. He was a high school legend, a USC star, the No. 3 overall pick in 2008. By 2013 he was on his second team, but he was still a known name. Antetokounmpo was the opposite — a mystery, a project, a draft pick nobody in the States had really scouted. The Bucks took him 15th overall that June, mostly on potential.
So when Giannis admitted he didn’t know who Mayo was, it wasn’t disrespect. It was just the truth. He hadn’t grown up watching the NBA. He’d been playing in Greece’s second division two years earlier. The league was foreign to him, literally.
But he learned fast. Not just the game, but the culture. He put his head down and worked. He stayed in Milwaukee year-round, became a part of the city, earned the respect of teammates and fans. That scrimmage moment with Mayo was just a funny footnote in a much longer story.
The Giannis Everyone Knows Now
Thirteen years later, that skinny kid is a two-time MVP, a Finals MVP, and an NBA champion. He ended Milwaukee’s 50-year title drought in 2021. And this summer, after all of that, he forced his way to the Miami Heat in a blockbuster trade that dominated the offseason.
The Heat got one of the best players in the world. But the guy who walked into that first scrimmage not knowing OJ Mayo’s name? That guy is still in there somewhere. He just doesn’t need an introduction anymore.
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