National Basketball Association

Giannis Antetokounmpo reportedly avoided major injury to wrist

Updated Feb. 20, 2023 7:23 p.m. ET

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Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo didn't suffer serious damage to his injured right wrist, The Athletic reported Monday.

Antetokoumpo reportedly had his wrist examined in New York on Monday, which showed that he won't have to miss a major amount of time but could still miss some games.

ESPN first reported that Antetokounmpo was going to New York, and it was later confirmed by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Antetokounmpo injured his wrist Thursday night in Chicago after attempting to block a shot. He exited after only nine minutes and did not return. He had X-rays and Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said at the time they came back clean.

But there evidently has not been much improvement in the wrist since. Antetokounmpo did not join his brothers as planned for the All-Star Skills Challenge on Saturday night in Utah — he was filled in for there by Bucks teammate and fellow All-Star Jrue Holiday.

And he played only 20 seconds in his team’s victory over Team LeBron in the All-Star Game on Sunday night, getting a dunk on the first possession, then taking a foul and heading to the bench to basically become a coach for the rest of the night.

"Taking it day by day, try to get healthy," Antetokounmpo said after the game. "You know, obviously I had the incident three days ago. I don’t think it’s smart in any way to, you know, play a lot of minutes in the All-Star Game. At the end of the day, obviously, you want to participate, you want to run up and down, joke around, have some dunks, create some work. But at the end of the day, I feel you also have to be mature."

He did not give any hint that the wrist issue is more serious than a sprain.

"Hopefully, I can, you know, be available for my team when they need me," Antetokounmpo said.

Milwaukee has the NBA’s second-best record coming out of the All-Star break at 41-17, a half-game behind Boston in the Eastern Conference.

Antetokounmpo is third in the NBA in scoring at 31.8 points per game, behind only Dallas’ Luka Dončić (33.3) and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid (33.1).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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