Giannis Antetokounmpo set the world on fire after his “failure” press conference following his Milwaukee Bucks’ first-round exit against the Miami Heat. Unfortunately, the good-intentioned crusade took a very tacky turn on Wednesday night.
Giannis continued the Twitter conversation with a tweet, ‘It’s steps to success.” The tweet included a video that, once again, featured the now-infamous press conference. However, a clip featuring the late great Kobe Bryant was formed towards the end of it.
Bryant was featured talking about failure as the video finished up.
It's steps to success. pic.twitter.com/PpVgec57ov
— Giannis Antetokounmpo (@Giannis_An34) May 10, 2023
The use of Kobe set Twitter off and resulted in some angry responses to the tweet from the former NBA MVP.
This was Kobe after a losing season. No excuses https://t.co/uAF3Oz0Q5g https://t.co/PC2Zx47Cyl
— Jax B.🔥 (@Two_For_The_Sho) May 10, 2023
Kobe would be in the gym, not posting videos to prop himself up. https://t.co/v6PVbb4ZjW
— 🔪Shotty🅿️ippen🃏🇦🇷 (@ShottyP1ppen) May 10, 2023
Using Kobe for a loser agenda is crazy 😂😂 https://t.co/5R4Zi9RUuC
— Lil Mountain 🏀 (@_Kyrieinthe4th_) May 10, 2023
Others decided that if Giannis would say this, there should be some referendums.
using this logic, lebron losing the 2011 finals isn’t a failure https://t.co/mmPr0rfM49 pic.twitter.com/PBcIcquoD8
— 💎 (@TJayyyy_1) May 10, 2023
The warriors didn’t fail in 2016 it was a step to success https://t.co/54wskdZBXv pic.twitter.com/vPEMAOHiO8
— ❤️🩹 (@ParkingLotSteph) May 10, 2023
Others weren’t thrilled with the use of Kobe in the video.
Why people always pull out the Kobe videos lol https://t.co/dzgrePHRV6
— Alex 👋 (@Dubs408) May 10, 2023
Giannis, using a dead man to stop the slander on himself https://t.co/82Y8lJdxUq pic.twitter.com/UDxzY8pXmL
— x – Braunologist 💍 (56-24) 🔥 (@ApplesBBL) May 10, 2023
Others pointed out that Kobe probably wouldn’t necessarily think this way.
This was Kobe’s mentality; If Job not finished nothing to celebrate pic.twitter.com/x3TmvgiYL5 https://t.co/dTUwsQwD6i
— ⚜️SSB⚜️ (@SSBKlutch) May 10, 2023
It makes you wonder how the issue would have dissipated if they didn’t talk about it. There is so much that happens in the world nowadays, and the NBA playoffs are still going and have been very dramatic. Nobody talks about the Bucks anymore, even after they fired Mike Budenholzer. But Giannis keeps inserting himself into the conversation. As a result, criticism is quick to follow, just like it did on Wednesday. But this time, for a pretty tacky reason. It’s tough to reconcile with using the dead to push a narrative.
