Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks are furious with the officiating over Giannis Antetokounmpo’s free-throw routine.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo is great in many ways. He is the best player on a steaming Bucks team. He is an absolute monster when going downhill. He is tenacious and tends to take challenges head-on. But a great free throw shooter? Hoo boy.
Unless you have been living under a rock, chances are you are aware of the Greek Freak’s free throw routine. Two practice free throws without the ball, before stepping back a bit. Then stepping forward and asking for the ball in the slowest of motions.
Then some even slower bounces, around five or six. Before he finally takes a shot. Even writing all that was exhausting, but watching the magnificence unfold live is significantly worse.
Someone needs to tell Giannis that you can only take a maximum of ten seconds, after the ball touches your hands, to actually attempt the free throw. But the thing is, if the NBA won’t, then who will?
In game-1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Trae Young and the Hawks had the pleasure of watching the whole routine live. But, despite the star crossing the time limit on multiple occasions, there was no call whatsoever. And according to sources inside the NBA, Atlanta is already sick of it.
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Now, for those who have watched the routine, you know it’s painful. It makes you want to yell ‘JUST THROW IT ALREADY, YOU’RE GOING TO AIRBALL IT ANYWAY!!’. And if you do feel that way, it seems you may have some friends in the Atlanta Hawks.
In game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Giannis had eight free throw attempts. And wouldn’t you know it, the man managed to go over 10 seconds in ALL of them. A few of his attempts even went up to as high as 13 seconds. But, there was no call at all.
So, there were already rumors about the Hawks potentially being unhappy with the officiating. And in a recent piece, Sam Amick of ‘The Athletic’ confirmed it.
“Sources say, the Atlanta Hawks are not happy that the league is continuing to look the other way on the matter… In the Hawks’ game 1 116-113 win over the Bucks… Antetokounmpo, by the Hawks’ internal count, ranged between 11.5 seconds and 13.3 seconds on his eight attempts, but wasn’t whistled once.”
It’s pretty hard to argue with the Hawks’ argument here, if you’re Giannis Antetokounmpo. This simply needs to be called, plain and simple.
Will the revelation of the franchise’s frustration bring about any change in the officiating though? It seems we’ll have to wait till game 2, to find out.
