[Amick] Giannis on wearing a knee brace for the Finals: "They said, ‘Giannis, you need to wear this.’ And they had made one specifically for me. I said, “Hell. No. I’m not wearing that shit.”"

Giannis really opens up about his knee injury in the playoffs last year, full quote:

It killed me. Game 1, there was a play where Jae Crowder shot and I stepped on his leg. And you know how he does this kick thing, and I literally tried to avoid him and he kicked me on my leg and my leg hyperextended.

What basically happened is that if my leg had hyperextended one more time…I was done. There’s nothing to cut that was in there. It was torn already. It was out — (the piece that) protected me from an MCL or ACL (tear). There’s a thing (in your leg) that protects you when you hyperextend (your knee) that doesn’t let you go all the way back. So that thing was torn. So if I had gone all the way back again, that’d be it for me.

I don’t know if you’ve seen where people wear a big brace on your knee, like Goran Dragic wears — a big brace. They told me, ‘Giannis, Tim Duncan wore this (so) wear this.’ I said, ‘Heeeell naw.’ They said, ‘Giannis, you need to wear this.’ And they had made one specifically for me. I said, “Hell. No. I’m not wearing that shit.”

On his mentality:

I have this mentality like, with my mom and dad, when they were working back home (in Greece), they felt no pain, you know? Like, why? Why would I feel pain, you know? They didn’t feel pain. They didn’t complain. You know, I didn’t see my Dad cry when he was here. I didn’t see him saying, ‘I’m in pain,’ I don’t see my Mom saying ‘I’m in pain’ and stuff like that. Why would I say I’m in pain? That’s how I’m raised. That’s how I’m built. So even though that was the right thing to do — no. The way of my mindset, that wasn’t for me. So OK, things (in the Finals went) well. We won the championship. Great, but now we’ve got to leave it in the past.

source (paywall)