{"id":48681,"date":"2022-10-19T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=48681"},"modified":"2022-10-18T18:13:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T22:13:52","slug":"top-nba-players-2022-23-1-giannis-antetokounmpo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2022\/10\/19\/top-nba-players-2022-23-1-giannis-antetokounmpo\/","title":{"rendered":"Top NBA Players 2022-23: #1 Giannis Antetokounmpo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two-time NBA MVP <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/strong><\/a> tops our list of the top players in 2022-23. The six-time All-Star is poised to lead the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2022\/10\/06\/milwaukee-bucks-season-preview-2\/\" target=\"_self\">Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> back to the NBA Finals. Will he end this season with more hardware?<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Top NBA Players 2022-23: #1 Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>A Championship Hangover<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antetokounmpo and the Bucks set out to defend their 2020-21 NBA title last season. Of course, things didn\u2019t go as planned, and Milwaukee was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2022\/05\/16\/how-the-boston-celtics-beat-the-milwaukee-bucks\/\" target=\"_self\">ousted<\/a> by the eventual conference champion <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2022\/09\/20\/boston-celtics-2022-2023-season-preview\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Celtics<\/a>. This wasn\u2019t Antetokounmpo\u2019s fault, as he led the Bucks with 33.9 points per game in the series without star wingman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlkh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Khris Middleton<\/strong><\/a>. The \u2018Greek Freak\u2019 put on a show in Game three, scoring 42 points in a near triple-double as he led Milwaukee to victory. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stepping back to review the season as a whole, it\u2019s clear to see that Antetokounmpo is still at the top of his game. He averaged 29.9 points, 11.6 rebounds, and 5.8 assists per game last year. Giannis improved his free throw shooting considerably, upping his percentage to 72.2%. He was second in the league in points per game and sixth in total points scored. The Bucks won 51 games, good for third in the eastern conference, and Antetokounmpo finished third in overall voting for the league\u2019s MVP award.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Giannis Antetokounmpo: 2022-23 Season Outlook<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antetokounmpo is primed for another MVP-level season with the Bucks. His turnaround post game is dominant against smaller defenders, who are also unable to do anything should he take it to the rim. Giannis is great on the break and his rebounding ability, paired with his handling skills, turn him into a one-man fast break. His ability to get to the rim has led to increased trips to the foul line. Not only has his shooting improved, but Antetokounmpo attempted a career-high 11.4 free throws per game last season. If both trends hold, he will see that points average eclipse the 30 mark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Oops all around. \ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xZlx6UW0S5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/xZlx6UW0S5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bucks\/status\/1581354306057502727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 15, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Defensively, Antetokounmpo is a force. Averaging over a steal and a block per game, his frame, athleticism, and timing make him a constant threat to force a turnover. He finished ninth in the NBA in defensive win shares and second Antetokounmpo is stout inside, ranking fifth in the league in defensive rebounds and eleventh in blocks per game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is no secret that Antetokounmpo isn\u2019t the best shooter in the league. His three-point shooting did not improve last year, as he hit only 29% of his shots from beyond the arc. The rest of the league hopes that this will be the case again this year because if Giannis ever develops a three-point shot, he\u2019ll be unguardable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Giannis led all scorers tonight.<\/p>\n<p>24 PTS | 14 REB | 4 AST | 3 STL <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/itbuQN8eHL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/itbuQN8eHL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bucks\/status\/1580393386678386690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 13, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>The Last Word on Giannis Antetokounmpo\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Antetokounmpo is one of the best all-around players to ever play in the NBA. He\u2019s the only player in league history to average at least 25 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, one steal, and one block per game in <a href=\"https:\/\/stathead.com\/tiny\/yEHv7?&amp;utm_medium=bbr&amp;utm_source=bbr_player&amp;utm_campaign=basketball&amp;utm_content=bait&amp;utm_term=antetgi01\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">multiple seasons<\/a>. He has done this each year since 2018. He\u2019ll do it for a fifth straight season in 2022-23 on his way to another MVP-level season.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo tops our list of the top players in 2022-23. The six-time All-Star is poised to lead the Milwaukee Bucks back to the NBA Finals. Will he end this season with more hardware? Top NBA Players 2022-23: #1 Giannis Antetokounmpo A Championship Hangover Antetokounmpo and the Bucks set out to defend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3815,"featured_media":43051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,15],"tags":[306],"class_list":["post-48681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-bucks","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo"],"modified_by":"Michael Love, Associate Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}