Basketball Antetokounmpo brothers bring NBA trophy home to Greece

ATHENS, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, the Greek brothers who helped the Milwaukee Bucks to their first NBA championship in 50 years last month, promised to take their trophy back to Sepolia, the run-down Athens neighborhood where they grew up.

Born in Greece to Nigerian immigrant parents, the Antetokounmpo brothers had to sell trinkets on the street to get by. They grew up fearing deportation and did not obtain Greek citizenship until 2013.

[ATTACH=full]377545[/ATTACH]
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks forward Thanasis Antetokounmpo and their mother Veronica Antetokounmpo pose for a picture as they arrive at the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens, Greece, August 1, 2021. Thanassis Dimopoulos/Eurokinissi via REUTERS. Giannis Antetokounmpo signed a 5 year / $228,200,420 contract with the Milwaukee Bucks, including $228,200,420 guaranteed, and an annual average salary of $45,640,084. In 2021-22, Antetokounmpo will earn a base salary of $39,344,900, while carrying a cap hit of $39,344,900 and a dead cap value of $39,344,900.

“I am very, very happy that one of the biggest trophies in the world is in Greece right now,” Giannis told a news conference during a visit to Athens with his brother alongside him.

“It’s an incredible thing. We don’t know how many days we’ll stay, but we definitely want to take it back to Sepolia and the places we grew up.”

Giannis - sometimes dubbed “the Greek Freak” - was the dominant player in the finals series against the Phoenix Suns, scoring 50 points in the last game and winning the Most Valuable Player award. Thanasis was forced to sit out the last two games of the finals under COVID-19 protocols.
The brothers’ extraordinary rise from Sepolia to the NBA has seized the imagination of the whole of Greece, where basketball normally trails football in popularity.
In their old neighborhood, rarely celebrated in the headlines, a giant mural of Giannis in his Milwaukee Bucks jersey, across the court where he and his brothers played and practiced, is a testament to the pride felt in his success.
“This journey has been crazy. If you told me eight years ago that I’d be in this position, along with Thanasis, and we’d have the NBA trophy with us, and that we can take it anywhere we wanted, I’d say you’re crazy,” he said.
“But it’s all been done with hard work – and we haven’t stopped. We don’t stop, as a family. That’s what we saw all our lives, our parents never stopped, we’d get back home after school, after practice and we saw our parents constantly working, every day to feed us.”
Reporting by Phoebe Fronista; Editing by Giles Elgood

The Greek freak

the boyz are Nigerian , the Turks will still call them niggerchieth despite winning them the trophy

US Basketball star Stephen Curry is in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania to celebrate his 10th anniversary of marriage with his wife Ayesha Curry.

Curry, who plays for Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2015 and 2016.

He also played a key role in helping his club, Golden State Warriors, to secure the NBA title in 2015, 2017 and 2018.

[ATTACH=full]378036[/ATTACH]

Wardell Stephen “Steph” Curry II is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association. He plays the point guard position. Many analysts and players have called him the greatest shooter in NBA history. Curry is placed third in MVP voting behind Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, his sixth top-six finish in his last seven healthy seasons.

Ayesha Disa Curry (née Alexander; born March 23, 1989) is a Canadian-American actress, cookbook author, and cooking television personality. After guest roles in several television shows and movies, she began hosting her own show, Ayesha’s Homemade (a.k.a. Ayesha’s Home Kitchen), on Food Network. Despite not having any professional chef training, her culinary career started in 2014, when she prepared her first meal as a YouTube demonstration on her channel Little Lights of Mine. Curry is the author of several videos on her channel Little Lights of Mine and has written one cookbook, The Seasoned Life, published in 2016.

[ATTACH=full]378037[/ATTACH]

On August 3, 2021, Curry agreed to a four-year, $215 million (Ksh23.4 billion) contract extension to remain with the Golden State Warriors through 2026.

Curry’s trip follows that of Belgian national football team player and Crystal Palace striker Christian Benteke in May.
Benteke’s teammate and defender Mamadou Sakho also visited Tanzania in May, touring Serengeti, Maasai Senate Village, Ngorongoro Crater Park and Zanzibar Islands.

Greeks are very good people and own big textile factories with a reputation of being Afro-friendly.