The anticipation around a potential trade hasn’t quieted down yet. Teams are still trying to lure him away from Milwaukee, but after his recent trip to Cleveland, that seems unlikely. Staying with the Bucks has always been about one thing for Giannis: winning. “I want to be in a team that allows me and gives me a chance to win a championship,” he said while addressing the trade talk. And while the Bucks look like strong title contenders, NBA insiders hint there are still a few roadblocks ahead.

On The Zach Lowe podcast, analyst Kirk Goldsberry drew a powerful comparison while discussing Giannis Antetokounmpo’s dominant start. He suggested that for the Bucks to reach championship glory, Giannis needs to channel a Lakers legend. “[He’s] playing at an MVP level and this is what he has to do to get the Bucks to where they want to go as a team,” Goldsberry said. 

“He has to be prime Shaq essentially to get them there, and he’s playing like it on the glass, in the paint, as a leader.” Goldsberry reminded everyone that it wasn’t too long ago when Giannis dropped 50 points in a closeout game of the NBA Finals. Remember Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals against the Phoenix Suns? 

And the proof is already written across the stat sheet. It’s barely been a week into the new NBA season, and Giannis Antetokounmpo is already rewriting history. The Bucks star has been crowned the Eastern Conference Player of the Week for the opening stretch (Oct. 21–26) and honestly, the numbers say it all.

Leading Milwaukee to a 2-1 record, Giannis put up video-game stats that only he could pull off:

• 36.0 points per game: second-best in the entire league
• 16.0 rebounds per game: the highest in the NBA
• 7.0 assists per game: good for 14th overall
• 68.3% shooting from the field: pure efficiency. The only player to top him in similar circumstances? None other than Shaquille O’Neal, who shot 72.1 percent back in the 1993-94 season.

He kicked things off with a 37-point double-double in the opener against Washington, followed that with a monstrous 31-point, 20-rebound performance in Toronto, and wrapped up the week with a 40-point, 14-rebound, 9-assist night in Cleveland, his 55th career 40-point game, tying the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the Bucks’ all-time record.

Even Shaquille O’Neal himself once admitted that if he played in today’s NBA, he’d see a lot of himself in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Shaq said in 2019, “I would’ve been the ‘Greek Freak’. A guy that can dribble, can handle, can go to the hole with force, do that, kick it to guards.” And honestly, we all remember what prime Shaq looked like: three straight championships with the Lakers, pure dominance, pure legend.

Doc Rivers also echoed the same after the game against the Cavaliers: “He gets hit, grabbed and held, it’s amazing how many times he gets hit on the arms, and that’s what we’re supposed to be looking for. It’s like Shaq.”

But here’s the catch. The challenge might not be Giannis himself, but the team around him. As Goldsberry pointed out, “Ultimately I think he has to do this in part because the roster around him is diminished and he doesn’t have the kind of support that you’d want to have… They haven’t surrounded him with all these complimentary pieces.”

During the offseason, Milwaukee underwent a major transformation aimed at keeping Giannis Antetokounmpo content and competitive. The Bucks moved on from Damian Lillard as well as longtime cornerstones Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, and Pat Connaughton, indicating the end of an era in Milwaukee.

In their place, general manager Jon Horst and head coach Doc Rivers reshaped the roster with a new supporting cast- headlined by Myles Turner, the returning Kevin Porter Jr., and fresh faces like Gary Harris, Cole Anthony, and Amir Coffey. The vision is clear: build a balanced, younger, athletic, hungry team capable of carrying Giannis back into title contention.

Whether this revamped lineup elevates Giannis and the Bucks to championship heights or proves to be a misstep remains to be seen.

Can the Greek Freak sustain this pace?

On the podcast, Zach Lowe voiced a concern that’s been on his mind since the Bucks’ 2-1 start. Praising Giannis Antetokounmpo’s brilliance, Lowe admitted he’s still uneasy about how much the Greek Freak is carrying on his shoulders. “I’m just worried that there’s too much on his plate,” he said.

“I know some people within the Cavs were asking this among themselves after last night’s game—can he possibly keep up? He’s playing, his defense is really good, super engaged, super active, the rebounding I mentioned. Can he actually do this for, forget 82, 65 or 70, or is some fatigue, an injury or something going to come? Because he’s doing everything for the team.”

The worries about Giannis’ workload are starting to feel very real. He kicked off the season already dealing with lower back soreness, and during the matchup against the Wizards, he took a scary tumble on his right hand and wrist in the fourth quarter, yet refused to leave the court. The Bucks’ roster depth isn’t helping either.

With key players sidelined, Giannis is carrying a massive load. Before the game, the team reported that two of their point guards, Kevin Porter Jr. (left ankle sprain) and Cole Anthony (non-COVID illness), along with Kyle Kuzma, will sit out.

That left Antetokounmpo handling almost all of the team’s playmaking, a strain that could lead to fatigue or limit his minutes on the floor.

Even after 13 seasons in the NBA, Giannis Antetokounmpo has yet to play a full 82-game slate. His closest runs came in 2014-15, when he suited up for 81 games, and in 2017-18, logging 75 contests. Most recently, in the 2023-24 season, he appeared in 73 games.