Basketball’s Positionless Savior Is Ready for Primetime

The future of the National Basketball Association has arrived in the form of a 22-year-old from Athens, Greece, who didn’t start playing basketball until he was 12, who discovered the joys of a smoothie just a few years ago, who watched Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America over and over to improve his English, and who feels like he’s still figuring it all out on the basketball court. Giannis Antetokounmpo is truly unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Entering his fifth season in the league, he is already looking like the next best basketball player in the world.

Four years ago, the Milwaukee Bucks used their 15th pick in the 2013 draft—one in which better-known college players like Anthony Bennett and Victor Oladipo were selected first and second caught the attention of scouts. Now he stands at 6-foot-11 and 222 pounds, but on draft night, before he became “the Greek Freak,” Antetokounmpo was just another foreign, vaguely mysterious prospect with a tantalizing .