For the first time since 2016, the NBA champions visited the White House on Monday, when President Biden welcomed the Milwaukee Bucks.
In a speech, Biden congratulated the Bucks on winning their championship and poked fun at a few of the players, including Donte DiVincenzo, the 2015 boys’ basketball player of the year in Biden’s home state of Delaware, and Jrue Holiday, who Biden joked isn’t as good of an athlete as his wife, former U.S. women’s national soccer team midfielder Lauren Holiday.
He also thanked the team for its efforts in encouraging people to vote and get vaccinated last season, as well as its actions in the aftermath of the August 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wis.
“You represented yourselves and your families, your organization and a great American city by staying true to who you are,” Biden said. “You did the work in an offseason and during a grueling regular season.”
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Biden also applauded the team’s efforts against the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns in the Eastern Conference semifinals and the NBA Finals, respectively. The Bucks were forced to climb out of a 2-0 hole in both series.
“You never gave up. I watched. It was amazing how you came back. You always believed. Coach Bud [Mike Budenholzer], you got them to play as a team.”
Bucks owner Marc Lasry and two-time league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo gave remarks before finishing the ceremony by presenting the president with a No. 46 Bucks jersey with his name on the back.
In the hours before the ceremony, the Bucks posed for pictures near the South Lawn, with guard Pat Connaughton posting a selfie of the team on his Twitter account. The Bucks’ Twitter account also posted a photo of Antetokounmpo and his brother and teammate, Thanasis, posing with their championship rings.
“I’m very excited,” guard George Hill, who signed with the Bucks as a free agent over the summer after spending last season with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia 76ers, said in a video the team posted. “I think it’s a great opportunity, not just for the Bucks but for all of us in general to be able to experience this. I’m thankful the Bucks gave me an opportunity to come here with them and celebrate something that they did that was so big last year.”
Antetokounmpo reflected on the experience as he arrived, thinking about the neighborhood in Athens where he grew up in a video posted on the NBA’s Twitter account.
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“From Sepolia to the Oval Office, meeting the president of the United States,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’m grateful for this opportunity, and it’s a great example that with a lot of hard work, you can accomplish a lot of things in life, and this is one of those amazing gifts that we get to experience.”
The previous NBA team to visit the White House was LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 10, 2016, when Barack Obama was still in office and just two days after Donald Trump was elected president. During the Trump administration, the Golden State Warriors did not celebrate their 2017 and 2018 championships with the traditional ceremonial visit at a time when Coach Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and other members of that team had been critical of Trump. In lieu of a White House visit in 2018, the team toured the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
“We’re celebrating [the championship] how we want to celebrate it,” Durant, now a member of the Nets, said at the time.
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The Toronto Raptors, who won the title in 2019, also did not make the traditional visit, with guard Danny Green saying it was “a hard no.” Scheduling problems and coronavirus protocols kept James’s Los Angeles Lakers from visiting in 2020.
“We’re very excited,” Budenholzer said of the team’s visit. “Very appreciative of the invite, know that it’s an honor and it’s special. We’re looking forward to visiting the White House.”
Trips typically are built around teams’ schedules, and the Bucks were in Washington on Sunday, when they lost to the Wizards.
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