He trained Antetokounmpo and now he destroys him: “He’s not very intelligent, he just has one way of playing. He’s a really difficult guy. I wish he had learned to execute differently”

Doc Rivers confirmed just a few weeks ago that he had permanently retired after joining the NBC channel as analyst of the NBA for this season. Thus, his last service as technical went in front of the Milwaukee Bucks until last April, when – in theory by mutual agreement – the franchise and the coach agreed to separate their paths. Their terrible regular season left no other way.

Two and a half seasons were left behind in which he was in charge of the buckswhere he did not get past the first round of the playoffs despite having Antetokounmpo in its squad, one of the maximum competition stars.

However, it seems that player and coach did not understand each other. Doc Rivers, in a talk with journalist Bill Simmons, He acknowledged that he had had problems with Giannis: “He’s not an easy player. He plays at that crazy pace… He’s really a difficult guy. He has great ability to pass the ball, but at the same time he’s not super intelligent. He really only has one way of playing. On every play, he wants to force the action. I wish he had learned to execute better.”

The statements are surprising. We are talking about a player who, except in the 25-26 season, where he could not perform due to injuries, has been seven years in a row among the top four in the MVP raceincluding two first places in 2019 and 2020.

The former coach did not stop there: “The thing is that he still need to learn the value of executionn, how important it is, when you are in training or in the shooting circle, to focus on execution. Now he has a coach who is elite in execution.” He refers to Erik Spoelstracoach of the Miami Heat.

Finally, he accused the Greek of being a coward, since He did not want to publicly request the transferbut at the same time he wanted to leave the Bucks, always according to Doc Rivers’ version: “I didn’t want to be the bad guy.”