“Old soul” Antetokounmpo still hungry entering 10th NBA season

Giannis Antetokounmpo is entering his 10th NBA season.

Which doesn’t sound right. The Antetokounmpo fans love is still a child at heart — the guy who celebrates a title by going to Chick-fil-A and ordering 50 nuggets. The guy who smiles big on the court and tells dad jokes at the end of every press conference. The guy who goes to the White House with Joe Biden and jokes he will run for president in 2024 with his brother Thanasis and call themselves “Antetokounbros.”

It doesn’t feel like a decade. Giannis Antetokounmpo still plays the game and lives life with child-like joy.

Yet the calendar doesn’t lie, this season will be 10 years in the league.

“I’m an old soul, Antetokounmpo told NBC Sports. “Like, in my mind I feel like I’ve been a vet five years now. But like my body… I have so much energy. I’m so hungry to accomplish more. I want to go out there and help you know my team in the best way possible. And a lot of people know that I’m a winner. I love to win. I love to go out there and leave everything on the court.

“But definitely I agree with you that people don’t think I’ve been 10 years in the league and they see me as kind of the young guy. You know the new guy on the block but it’s okay, you know, but at the end of the day, I won’t go out there and do the best job possible and try to win games.”

In that decade Antetokounmpo has changed and evolved, especially physically. Antetokounmpo is not the scrawny kid who got pushed around when he entered the NBA, now he is a physical force like few others in the Association.

“I definitely feel different,” Antetokounmpo said. “When I was 18 I was eating cheeseburgers and drinking Mountain Dews and, you know, sodas, but as you as you grow older, you realize that you want to