{"id":435366,"date":"2017-04-11T16:24:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T20:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=435366"},"modified":"2017-04-11T16:24:45","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T20:24:45","slug":"giannis-antetokounmpo-vaguely-literary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/news\/nba\/giannis-antetokounmpo-vaguely-literary\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaguely Literary: Giannis Antetokounmpo x The Alchemist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Giannis, it\u2019s been a great year for you, validating a big salary bump with superstar play. You\u2019ve been doing it all for your team, putting together elements of frontcourt and backcourt play like an alchemist synthesizing gold. And so the perfect book for you is <em>The Alchemist<\/em> by Paulo Coelho. It is a tale of a young boy on an international adventure, from humble to suddenly magical and grand. Sounds a little bit like your life story.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t that long ago you were living in Greece working as a street merchant. Your rise was swift and now you\u2019re a 6-11 PG being coached by one of the great NBA wizards, scoring 30 in an All-Star Game. In <em>The Alchemist<\/em>, a boy named Santiago experiences such a journey. He goes from being a shepherd in Andalusia to a treasure hunter underneath the pyramids of Egypt. Santiago is on a quest to develop his personal legend, as are you. To complete this journey, he must look within and face what may seem like insurmountable odds. Giannis, wherever this season takes you, if you are able to carry Milwaukee deep into\u00a0the playoffs, the best you can hope for is a chance to compete against the mighty king LeBron who has owned the Eastern Conference\u2019s NBA Finals spot since 2011. Santiago faced a similar challenge. There is much for you to learn, and by reading Coelho\u2019s novel, you may find the inspiration you need.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<\/p>\n<p><em>Sam Rubenstein is a\u00a0SLAM contributing writer and a\u00a0high school\u00a0English teacher in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/samrubenstein\" target=\"_blank\">@SamRubenstein.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Previously<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/features\/vaguely-literary-jeremy-lin-x\/#q1JjIPUYB2A9f1gq.97\" target=\"_blank\">Jeremy Lin x A Canticle for Leibowitz<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nba\/vaguely-literary-karl-anthony-towns-x-the-wu-tang-manual\/#xBGhuTegbqbqRQcw.97\" target=\"_blank\">Karl-Anthony Towns x The Wu-Tang Manual<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=435377&amp;preview=true\" target=\"_blank\">Damian Lillard x Walden, or Life in the Woods<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/nba\/vaguely-literary-karl-anthony-towns-x-the-wu-tang-manual\/#xBGhuTegbqbqRQcw.97\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Giannis, it\u2019s been a great year for you. As the playoffs approach, the book for you is\u2026 &#8220;The Alchemist&#8221; by Paulo Coelho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":435398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7823,18],"tags":[10831,13007,21232,10582],"yst_prominent_words":[21840,16536,18987,21841],"class_list":["post-435366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-nba","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-slam-208","tag-vaguely-literary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435366"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435417,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435366\/revisions\/435417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435366"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=435366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}