Giannis the playmaker? Some stunning historical context. And Heat postscripts

Miami Heat admin October 5, 2026 0 Comments

Giannis the playmaker? Some stunning historical context. And Heat postscripts

When the Heat acquired Giannis Antetokounmpo in June, the natural instinct was to focus on the prodigious point production (57th all time), the volume rebounding (71st all time), the thunderous dunks and the ferocious forays to the basket.

It was easy to overlook his historical greatness in setting up teammates for scores.

Everyone was reminded of that element of his game in his Heat preseason debut Saturday, when the two-time MVP dished out seven assists in 14 minutes in a 129-105 romp over the Toronto Raptors in Quebec City. All seven assists led to three-pointers.

Antetokounmpo finished with nine points (3 for 3 shooting) and four rebounds. But it was the every-other-minute assist rate that had Erik Spoelstra drawing loose comparisons to Magic Johnson.

“He makes great plays,” Spoelstra said. “We knew that about him. We faced him in the playoffs three times. But when you really see it every day in practice this week, you appreciate how brilliant of a playmaker he can be. With the size and the vision and the ability just to put it on the numbers to your shooters is really impressive.

“Pat [Riley] was at practice all week, and the way he played with the ball in his hands and delivering the ball reminds all of us of a great big point guard that played for Pat back in the 80s.”

To appreciate the 6-11 Antetokounmpo’s playmaking, for a player of his size, consider the historical context:

▪ In NBA history, no player taller than Antetokounmpo has averaged more assists than his 5.0 per game, which ranks 125th all time. Only one player as tall – 6-11 Denver center Nikola Jokic – has averaged more; he ranks 23rd all time at 7.5 per game.

▪ Only two players taller than Antetokounmpo have more career assists than his 4484, which ranks 96th all time.

Those players are 7-2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who ranks 51st with 5660 assists, and 7-1 Wilt Chamberlain, who is 86th with 4643. But Jabbar’s 3.6 career assist average and Chamberlain’s 4.4 trail Antetokounmpo’s 5.0.

If Antetokounmpo avoids major injuries, he could pass Jabbar within three years.

Three players who are listed as the same height as Antetokounmpo also rank ahead of him on the NBA’s all-time assist list: Jokic (41st with 6080), Kevin Garnett (57th with 5445) and Kevin Durant (64th at 5280).

▪ Antetokounmpo is 13th among active players in career assists. You need to go all the way down to 57th on the list to find a taller active player on the list – Knicks 7-0 center Karl Anthony Towns.

▪ Three times this decade, Antetokounmpo has finished in the top 20 in the league in assists, including 13th in 2024-25, when he averaged a career-high 6.5 assists for the second consecutive year.

▪ He has had 76 regular-season games of 10 or more assists, with a career high of 20 set in April 2025.

“He makes the right play every time, driving, kicking out to wide open shooters,” Heat guard Pelle Larsson said. “So he’s very easy to play with.”

Antetokounmpo remains an electromagnetic force in the paint, drawing multiple defenders and leaving shooters open in the corners.

“That gravity he gets is going to make everyone’s job easy,” Andrew Wiggins said. “Giannis is a generational talent.”

ESPN interview highlights

A half-dozen notable comments from the Antetokounmpo/Bam Adebayo joint interview with ESPN’s Hannah Storm last week:

▪ Antetokounmpo: “Defensively it’s going to be a nightmare for whoever tries to play against us.”

▪ Adebayo: ”To put us on the same team, well now you got to deal with him in transition and then on the other end, you’ve got to try and score. That’s where the nightmare comes in.”

▪ Antetokounmpo on the biggest challenge this season: “To be able to have patience. That’s going to be very challenging. I feel like there’s so much expectation. People believe from day one it’s going to look crazy. I don’t really care about how it starts; I care about how we finish. It will work. It’ll work because we have great people with great mindsets.”

▪ Antetokounmpo, on what he has noticed about Adebayo: “He’s a great leader, vocal. He’s never going to have us do something that he’s not going to do himself.”

▪ Adebayo, on what he told Antetokounmpo to expect: “I talk a lot of times [about] our down years. I still talk about how the arena is still full of people; the excitement of the team still matters to them no matter what our record is. Because one they know we’re always going to play hard.”

▪ Antetokounmpo: “You cannot win [on] your own terms. You have to let the team be the team. Sometimes you have to do other things in order for you to win. I know how to win a specific way and maybe that way I knew how to win is old. I might need to do something different, but I know that I am willing to do that.”

This and that

After years of often playing with an undersized power rotation player next to Adebayo, Spoelstra conceded last week that the ability to play more big lineups comes with psychological benefits.

“I think we’ll be able to go to smaller lineups, but if you constantly do that, doing that, I think it has more of a mental toll than a physical toll, believe it or not,” Spoelstra said. “But the guys sense the versatility. They sense the level of physicality we can bring with a bigger front line. Those tenets that we’re always talking about, protecting their paint, dominating the rim, dominating the physical areas, they can see it clearly with the type of guys we have.”

▪ Former Heat point guard Norris Cole’s hiring, as an assistant coach on the Heat’s G-League team in Sioux Falls, S.D., was apparently years in the making.

“I love it; he and I have been talking probably at least three years,” Spoelstra said. “Every offseason, he’s reached out to me asking. Initially, it was just about coaching and what that looks like. He expressed some interest in it. He just wanted to know more about it. Those were conversations that I just kept in my pocket. And then each offseason, it’s a follow-up check-in. Do you still want to play or if you’re ever thinking about this …

“Each year it’s been a little bit more of his desire to take that step. I think he’s built for it. He really has a great way about him. He’s about all the right things. So the work ethic, the competitiveness, the attention to detail that he had as a player. I think that translates to coaching. I think it’s a great fit and he was willing to go to Sioux Falls. That’s the ultimate test. A lot of the guys have reached out over the years. They want to get into coaching, but that’s really the pipeline. You start there and then we’ll see what happens.”

Cole becomes the latest former Heat player to move into coaching with the organization, a list that includes current Heat assistants Chris Quinn, Malik Allen and Caron Butler and former Sioux Falls head coach Kasib Powell.