Giannis Antetokounmpo’s ladder beef with Montrezl Harrell and a 76ers arena worker, explained

Giannis Antetokoumpo isn’t a player with too many weaknesses in his game, but if there was a glaring one out there it’d almost certainly be his ability to shoot free throws.

Free throws have generally been a struggle for Antetokounmpo over the last few years. He’s been up and down on his percentages for most of his career and he also takes a super long time to actually shoot them.

And, boy, did he struggle with them against the 76ers on Friday. He shot 4-15 from the line in the game.

He was so bad that he came back to the court after the 76ers win to actually practice his free throw.

And, well, that’s where all this beef started.

Watch our sneaker unboxing series, Special Delivery

Yup. That’s a thing. If you were up in the wee hours of the morning on Twitter you probably saw this video of Giannis Antetokounmpo tossing a ladder away from the basket and going back to shooting free throws.

That’s not a great look, obviously. Antetokounmpo is clearly mad. But this is where the story actually ends, not the beginning.

So here’s the deal. Antetokounmpo came out on the floor to shoot free throws after the game.

He was in the middle of practicing his shot, which isn’t necessarily the most normal thing after a game but it is something that has been done before. He started after the game ended.

It’s not common to see a player staying behind and getting in work after a game. But it does happen. Remember when Kobe Bryant did it in 2011? It was on the road after a loss to the Heat.

DeMar DeRozan did it earlier this year, too.

So Giannis wasn’t doing anything extraordinary here.

Well, things started to get weird. In the middle of Antetokounmpo’s practicing, Harrell comes to take the ball to interrupt his practice and stop his shooting.

After he takes the ball he yells at Giannis, “This isn’t f****** Milwaukee. Get that s*** out of there,” per The Athletic.

The mess really starts here.

After every game, arena workers take down the cameras on top of the courts. They began that process while Antetokounmpo was shooting on the opposite side of the court. That’s an important detail here. Only one side of the court is open and available for shooting at a time in this scenario.

So after Harrell steals the ball, Giannis goes in the back and gets another ball so he can continue shooting.

But the kicker is Harrell goes on the other side of the court and starts shooting himself so Antetokounmpo can’t shoot peacefully on the other side. Only the side with the ladder on it is open.

Incredibly petty. So, Antetokounmpo comes back and returns to the side of the court he was originally on.

The ladder was in the way. You can refer to the first video for the rest. It’s just a weird petty situation. Antetokounmpo spoke to the media about it after and didn’t seem to feel remorseful for what happened at all.

“I never try to disrespect anyone, in any way shape or form…I feel like today was just unfortunate event that took place. I think people did not respect the fact that sometimes players want to get some extra work in. I think it’s unprofessional to kick somebody off the court or take the ball or whatever the case might be. Or put the ladder in front of somebody while he’s trying to do his job. We get paid to do this. They didn’t just pick us. We get paid.”

Clearly, he was bothered by this.

Yup. And he let it ring off on Twitter.

So that’s that on that.

Nah. Not really. This is the best tweet you’re probably going to see about it all.

And that’s really all there is to it.