Hasan Minhaj Tried (And Failed) To Make Giannis Trash Talk KD And Other NBA Stars On ‘The Daily Show’

Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are playing the best basketball of any team in the NBA right now, as the Bucks have rattled off 14 straight wins, most recently beating the Suns with Giannis sidelined with a knee injury, to move into the top spot in the Eastern Conference. While health is the lingering question for the Bucks (and most contenders), they are looking an awful lot like the team that won a championship two years ago.

The Bucks star has never been much of a trash talker, at least in public, and if anything prefers to be effusive in praising the skills of the best players in the league. That is something Hasan Minhaj can’t understand, so when Minhaj invited Giannis to join him on The Daily Show during his guest hosting run, he wrote up some trash talk for Giannis to deliver to other NBA stars like Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James (around the 12:30 mark of the above video).

The result was Giannis awkwardly reading a teleprompter, where the only real decent bit was him telling KD to come workout with him so he can show you how to carry a team yourself instead of joining superteams. Minhaj was proud of that one, but Giannis immediately went off script and began praising KD and making sure he knew this was all a bit and not actually him talking, to the dismay of Minhaj.

By the end, Giannis wouldn’t even talk trash to LeBron and just explained how he’s the GOAT, realizing after the KD bit that he was just asking to end up with the clips getting broken out on social media. The lesson here is to just let Giannis be nice off the court, because it just ends up being awkward for him to do the tough guy schtick — especially since he is plenty good at flipping the switch and being a killer on the court.