NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo becomes hacker’s target

nba-mvp-giannis-antetokounmpo-becomes-hackers-target

The NBA’s Giannis Antetokounmpo is an opponent’s worst nightmare. At 6’11”, the Milwaukee Bucks power forward has become one of the best players in the league since his entry in 2013, allowing him to collect a laundry list of accolades – 2019 MVP, four-time NBA All-Star, NBA All-Defensive Team, and much more. He is also the first hoops star to complete a regular season in the top 20 rankings of all five statistical categories, including total points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. Antetokounmpo is now playing defense of a different sort, though, as some strange comments began to be posted by his Twitter account. It didn’t take long to figure out that his account had been hacked, and the damage apparently goes much further than the social media platform.

nba-mvp-giannis-antetokounmpo-becomes-hackers-targetA series of obscene tweets began appearing on Antetokounmpo’s Twitter account yesterday, some of which attacked other basketball players, such as Stephen Curry and the late Kobe Bryant. Others were more innocuous, such as a tweet that he was on his way to the Golden State Warriors, but were still troublesome. Should the Warriors actually pick him up, which is within the realm of possibility, the result would be an NBA powerhouse led by the Greek national and Curry. It would be the type of move that would have other NBA teams cringing and suddenly creating entirely new playbooks.

Almost as soon as the wayward tweets began to appear, anyone who knows the player would have realized that the comments weren’t coming from him. Still, his brother, Kostas Antetokounmpo of the LA Lakers’ G-League team, was quick to jump in, responding to each tweet with a message of his own to let everyone know that the posts were fake.

The MVP’s girlfriend, Mariah Riddlesprigger, also stepped in to clarify the situation, explaining in a tweet of her own, “Giannis’ twitter, phone, email and bank accounts were hacked! He genuinely apologizes for everything that was tweeted and he will be back as soon as possible! The things that were said by this hacker were extremely inappropriate and disgusting!”

The Bucks are now helping in an investigation to try to figure out what happened. It isn’t clear if there was any financial fallout from his bank account being hacked, or if he has been able to recover control of his phone and email accounts. Antetokounmpo has been able to regain his Twitter account, though, and took to the social media platform later in the day to explain, “Hey everybody! I’m back and would like to address the social media incident from earlier today! I was hacked and the situation is currently being investigated. The tweets and posts were extremely inappropriate and I am so disappointed and disgusted that somebody would say the terrible things that were said!

“I feel terrible that the Bucks, Khris, LeBron and the Curry family were included in the malicious and untrue tweets. I feel especially terrible for the Bryant family, during their time of grief they should not be subjected to this type of negativity and foul behavior. Thank you all for always supporting my family and I, and please stay safe!”