The Milwaukee Bucks will have two representatives in the 2020 NBA All-Star Game in Chicago, but reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo thinks that as the league's top team record-wise heading into All-Star break, they should have more. Specifically, he thinks that Eric Bledsoe should be joining himself and Khris Middleton at the annual exhibition, and he said as much with a post to his Twitter account:
How on earth are we about to have almost 50 wins before All Star and we don’t have 3 All Stars in the game???? @EBled2 is an All Star!
— Giannis Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) January 31, 2020
While speaking with media members on Friday, Antetokounmpo reiterated his belief that Bledsoe should be an All-Star. He also took it a step further by saying that he thinks that the Bucks as a whole don't get the respect they deserve.
"I want to be honest. I feel like at times that we don't get as much respect and it's OK, we haven't earned anything, at the end of the day," Antetokounmpo said, via ESPN. "I think [Eric Bledsoe] should've made the team. We have a great team. We have guys that don't play a lot of minutes.
"Bled could average 20-25 points if we actually played a lot of minutes but we didn't. He's sacrificed also, a lot for this team and is one of our leaders," he continued. "Not just Bled, and Brook [Lopez] also. I wanted Bled to be on the team, the whole team wanted Bled to be on the team because he's definitely deserving, but this team is unselfish. Guys that are on this team, they just play to win and even though he did not make it, he's going to come out for the rest of the season give his best and help this team be successful."
Though Antetokounmpo thinks that the Bucks are deserving of another All-Star, he also knows that as a team they're far from done, and still have a long way to go in order to achieve their goal of winning a championship.
"We're not done," Antetokounmpo said. "We've got a long way to go. We're on pace, we can probably win 70 games, but at the end of the day, we've got to keep getting better. I think the team is getting better game by game and we're definitely motivated. We haven't done nothing. Not trying to take anything away from the games that we won, but we've got a long way to go and I've said in the past, but I'll say it right now that our goal is to play in June and be the best team we can be at that time."
Whether or not Bledsoe actually should have been named an All-Star is up for debate, but it's never a bad idea to go to bat for your teammate(s) like Antetokounmpo did. That's a solid sign of leadership on his part. Plus, in a long season, the Bucks can use the perceived snub as additional motivation.
