What began as a dismal, doom-like kickoff to the 2024-25 NBA season for the Milwaukee Bucks has recently turned into an impressive turnaround throughout the last few weeks. With the Bucks climbing from the bottom of the East to sixth place, they look like a completely different team. What does this say about their leader, Giannis Antetokounmpo? Is MVP consideration back in the frame? He’s certainly playing like it should be.
Bucks Season Shift Puts the Greek Freak in MVP Talks
Does the Bucks Resurgence Put Giannis Antetokounmpo in MVP Consideration?
At one point early on, the Bucks had won just two games in their first 10. The heat was coming down as hard as torrential rainfall on Milwaukee, with Giannis and Doc Rivers at the center. Rivers’ postgame media sessions showed his frustrations many times over. As for Giannis, he seemed calmer and even keel despite expressing his own frustrations with how things were going. However, slowly, the Bucks began to win some games. The tides appeared to shift as they hit a seven-game win streak to close out the month of November. Milwaukee has managed to climb their way to the sixth seed in the East with a 12-11 record. It’s not a great record, but considering where they’ve come from, it’s a breath of fresh air.
With this recent development, it’s only fair to turn our attention to Giannis. The Greek Freak is having a sensational season to date. Even while his team was taking on water, he still poured in the points nightly. The only thing was that the Bucks were falling while he was scoring. If they were winning from the start, Giannis would assuredly be in top consideration for MVP. Now that Milwaukee is winning and has seemingly bailed out most of their water, it’s only fair that Giannis enters into the conversation. His season averages and offensive production call for it. There are those around the NBA media who back this opinion. Giannis is averaging 32.5 points, 11.6 rebounds, and 6.2 assists while shooting 60% from the field.
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If you ask ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and his podcast colleagues, Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon, about Milwaukee’s recent change of direction, it’s enough to put Gianni’s name in MVP conversations. The trio discussed where Milwaukee could land at the end of the season, provided their winning ways continue. That discussion gave way to Giannis.
“Giannis is gonna have an MVP case if they’re a top four team in the East,” McMahon said, “Especially with the Nuggets struggling, the MVP is back to being wide open…you cannot give MVP to a guy in the play-in scenario…”
Bontemps jumped in by stating that even if Milwaukee ends up as a play-in team, Giannis might still have a chance. Nevertheless, currently, Giannis has a case for MVP, and if he keeps up the numbers he’s putting up, you can’t remove him. The only scenario that could call for that would be if Milwaukee begins to slip again and slip drastically, to the point where they’re completely outside of the playoff picture and back in the bottom of the East. That said, I think it’s safe to say that the Bucks are heading up, not down, and will continue on that trajectory.
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