The Two Steps That Changed The NBA

From outdoor courts in Serbia to the NBA hardwood, this is the inside story of how the Eurostep has become the most unguardable move in basketball.

- Jordan Brenner

Giannis Antetokounmpo lifts himself out of his mesh-backed office chair and strides to the center of the Bucks’ locker room. Moments earlier on this March evening, he was eyeing the exit as a media horde questioned him about the Bucks’ 11-point loss to the Rockets, their sixth in seven games. So when One More Reporter approaches him with just One More Question about One More Loss, he barely looks up.

Now he can’t stop talking. In fact, talking isn’t enough, so he extends his famously long limbs and mimics dribbling a basketball on the patterned gray carpet. “You dribble in the front—one, two,” Antetokounmpo says, taking one step forward with his right foot, then another with his left to the opposite side of an imaginary defender. “That,” he says, “is a Eurostep.”

Antetokounmpo continues, modeling his footwork with the precision of a ballroom instructor. Defenders have started sitting on the Eurostep, he explains, so now his go-to move is a counter to the original. He returns to the center of the locker room to demonstrate. Antetokounmpo begins again with a right-handed dribble, throws a quick shoulder fake to his left, but this time he keeps the ball on the right side of his body and takes another long stride in that direction. This whole performance is in response to a single question: “How did you develop your Eurostep?”

“Walk with me,” he says, as he makes his way through the corridors of the Bradley Center toward the players’ parking lot. Passing by maintenance workers lugging heavy trunks, he continues on about the intricacies of the Eurostep—how James Harden uses it to get fouled; how his instincts tell him which way to go—a move that just over a decade ago had no name, had few NBA practitioners and sure as hell looked like a travel.