“When we say point forward, it means that he’s going to flop with the two guard.” – Milwaukee Bucks head coach Don Nelson on Paul Pressey in 1984

In a Milwaukee Journal story published Nov. 6, 1984, Don Nelson made the first public reference of a new hybrid position – point forward – in the NBA, one that would fundamentally change the game.

But who invented it? Who played it first? Who named it?

Those answers vary, depending whom you ask. What is definitive, however, is that a collection of coaches and players in and from Milwaukee and Wisconsin were part of them, which pushed the NBA into a new era in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And it is only fitting that four decades later Giannis Antetokounmpo would surpass what most imagined a forward could do with the ball.

In a two-part series, the Journal Sentinel interviewed two dozen players and coaches to examine the origins of the point forward position and how it's rooted in Wisconsin – even if its seeds flowered around the country. In part two, Antetokounmpo shows how he has perhaps pushed the point forward to near extinction and the league into a new era of position-less basketball.

How Giannis became the next Bucks point forward

Sitting in his locker inside Boston’s TD Garden in late November, Giannis Antetokounmpo fielded a question about 19-year-old San Antonio rookie sensation Victor Wembanyama. Antetokounmpo listened intently as he was told the 7-foot-4 teen and the Spurs wanted to model his initial steps into the NBA after Antetokounmpo’s.

Did it help, having the ball in his hands and playing different positions? He acknowledged it did.

“Coming into the league I was a four man, second year I was more of a shooting guard, third year I was a point guard,” Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t know what I am today. I just try to be a basketball player and fit in where I can.”

But upon his arrival in Milwaukee, a smaller version of the 6-11, 240-pounder sitting in that locker was to be the next iteration of the point forward.

“We saw an instinct for the game, his ball-handling skills and his vision and his ability to pass that were beyond what you would see in somebody his size,” former Bucks assistant general manager David Morway said. “That was early on. Those were the skills that were really attractive, besides his competitiveness and work ethic and all that.”

Antetokounmpo averaged 6.8 points and 1.9 assists a rookie, a bundle of raw potential. Jason Kidd was acquired to coach the Bucks in 2014-15 and, while he was a traditional point guard at 6-4, Kidd saw something different in Antetokounmpo.

“Maybe the next Magic Johnson,” said Kidd, now Dallas’ head coach. “He’s unselfish. His vision, his ability to pass and make some of those passes that most people can’t make, so that was the idea.”

The coach embraced the idea of a growing Antetokounmpo as the Bucks’ primary ball handler late in 2015-16, going so far as to stand on a chair in a practice to better see the game from such great heights. Antetokounmpo blossomed. He averaged an impressive 18.8 points and 7.5 assists over the final 26 games of the season, a stretch that included five triple-doubles.

“The person that enhanced it the most was probably J-Kidd because he was like, no, no, no, he’s the one that gets the ball,” Antetokounmpo told the Journal Sentinel. “I was the point guard of the team. And I enjoyed it. I learned a lot, I learned how to play with the ball, I learned how hard the job is.

“The last year he was here (2017-18), I was the point guard. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to do.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo expands the point forward position

Those years showed that Antetokounmpo had more to his game than just running an offense, however. He was developing into a force unlike any the NBA had seen. His ability to get from one end of the court to the other in mere strides meant teams could not prevent his forays to the rim. He turned into a premier scorer at nearly 27 points per game.

He found he could be more impactful if he moved around the court.

“I’m at my best when I always have a very good point guard next to me and I’m able to make decisions, not where I’m only the point guard,” he acknowledged. “Because I’m able to give the ball up and become a four man, become a three man, a five man. Whenever I’m choosing and I feel good and the game is going on, I can switch it, I can rotate that position from being a point guard, shooting guard, to a small forward, power forward, center, and I just keep rotating those positions throughout the game. I’ve found this perfect mixture.”

Which is why Mike Budenholzer chuckled at the memory of the 2013 pre-draft meetings in Atlanta, where he was the head coach. The Hawks desired Antetokounmpo and fashioned him as a potential point guard also. But by the time Budenholzer was ready to take the Bucks head coaching job in 2018, that mindset had changed.

“I just remember thinking there’s nobody like him,” Budenholzer recalled to the Journal Sentinel. “You can’t look at or emulate or say, this is what so and so did with this point guard or with this, even power forward. There’s nobody like him. So it was intimidating and exciting all at the same time, just trying to figure out the kind of environment, (what) the best kind of system for Giannis was going to be, and the team.”

Budenholzer and his staff found that system. That year, Antetokounmpo won his first most valuable player award, blistering the NBA with 27.7 points and 5.9 assists per game. He was the league’s best player, on its best team.

Over a five-year period, the Bucks had point guards next to him in Eric Bledsoe and Jrue Holiday. Khris Middleton was an all-star wing who could also handle the ball. Antetokounmpo became the Bucks’ all-time leading point-getter and has scored like no other since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Antetokounmpo was always the tip of the sword offensively and continually sculpted its handle.

“From the team, I probably have the ball in my hands the most,” he said, “I’m put in position to score, in position most likely to create, off rebounds, run, starting off plays. If you notice all the first plays of our games, I always start the play as a point guard. Something I’ve been doing since I was a kid. I don’t want to say I’m a point guard because I’m not a guard. I’m a forward. But I’m definitely a point forward.”

He paused.

“I don’t like putting positions – forward, center, this, that. I’m a basketball player. I make good basketball decisions. Sometimes it’s going to be from the perimeter, sometimes it’s going to be playmaking, sometimes going to be from the post, sometimes it’s going to be from transition, sometimes it’s just going to be from the bench, I don’t know. But like, I’m a basketball player that makes good decisions.”

Antetokounmpo’s scoring ability was akin to that of LeBron James, and that attention from defenses helped him set up teammates more often. Maturity has helped that, too, as Antetokounmpo realized zipping passes over the top of the defense can make everyone’s life easier.

And in 2022, he passed Pressey as the Bucks' all-time assists leader.

“I am not a scorer,” Antetokounmpo insisted, much like James has over the years. “I am not. I am a basketball player. Gotta make good plays, as much as I can throughout the game, make good decisions. Sometimes it’s me scoring the ball, sometimes it’s me passing the ball. I think what people identify for me before I came in the league was I’m able to make good decisions. Somebody my height, being 6-9, 6-11 now, almost 7-foot, being able to make decisions in transition, set games, just make the right pass, put teammates in the right position. And, you know, by doing that – I’ve been doing that for 10 years now – I’m fortunate enough to be able to break that record.”

He refuses to say he’s a better passer, per se, because it implies it was a skill he lacked. But he admits his patience and understanding of the game, of what he’s looking for and trying to do, has improved.

“See where the open pass is before I actually start moving,” he said.

This season he's putting together the best of both worlds in averaging 30 points per game while handing out a career-best 6.4 assists. He has set a career high in triple-doubles with nine entering the week.

And, he has captured the imagination of those who came before him.

Rick Barry called Antetokounmpo an anomaly, one without definition. Pressey thinks Antetokounmpo can do even more and has no idea how to stop him.

“I don’t know if you’d call him a point forward,” Grant Hill said. “I don’t know what his role is. He does a little bit of what a point forward traditionally can do. He also does a lot more. He’s a unique talent. To be that big and that long and that athletic and have that responsibility, it just speaks to how the game’s evolved.”

Charles Barkley, however, felt there would be no evolution of the point forward after Antetokounmpo “because how many guys can do what he does? First of all, he’s the only guy to do what he did, or does. So it’s not – if you think more guys are going to be born like that? Hell, no.”

Future of the NBA is position-less

But Wembanyama is here.

So is 7-1 Chet Holmgren in Oklahoma City. Alexandre Sarr is a 7-1 teenager who might be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft who NBA.com writes has “some of the offensive flashes of three-point range, pull-up shooting and open-floor ball-handling.”

And those are just the 7-footers.

When Pressey played the first season as a point forward in 1984-85, he was the only forward among the top 40 assist men in the NBA. Today, there are 10 forwards or centers in the top 40. And some guards are now the size of the forwards in Pressey’s era, like Dallas’ 6-7 Luka Dončić and Detroit’s 6-6 Cade Cunningham.

“I think Don (Nelson) was the first guy that thought out of the box that just because a guy is 6-8, that means he’s a small forward, 6-10 is a power forward, 7-feet is a five,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. “He put people to where their abilty was no matter what their size was. I thought that was genius. It changed the league because now everyone does it. Now, if you ask a team who’s a point guard on every team, most people can’t even tell you.”

Del Harris agreed, as well as Pressey. So did Sidney Moncrief. And Marques Johnson. And Isiah Thomas.

“It may be the first step that our league took in the position-less basketball,” said Mitch Johnson, who is now an assistant coach in San Antonio and whose father, John, was a Milwaukee prep standout and early NBA point forward. “You have all these skill sets and now people are almost reluctant to put positions on things, right? The hardest position to define right now is point guard. How I at least define it now is there’s usually a primary decision maker who handles the ball. And 99% of the time it’s the best player.”

And if there are no positions, why would there be a need to define one?

This is where Antetokounmpo, not yet 30, straddles the line between the era into which he arrived and the one he’s ushered in.

Are you a point forward?

“I am,” he said with a nod. “I am a 6-11½, with shoes, 7-foot, point-forward.”

He slapped his knees.

But give him enough time, he lets go of that rope just a little. He doesn’t like labels, so he self-corrected.

Part 1: Who invented the point forward? Coaches and players from Wisconsin and Milwaukee played a part

“I tell my brothers all the time, I’m going to tell my kids, it doesn’t matter the position they play,” he adds. “He’s gonna go, ‘Dad, he’s playing me at the two.’ It doesn’t matter. What matters is you being a basketball player and making good basketball decisions when you have the ball.”

He nodded again.

“I see myself as a good basketball player.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: After the point forward, has Giannis ushered in a new era of play?