Undoubtedly one of the top-five players in the NBA over the past decade, coaching Giannis Antetokounmpo doesn’t come without its own set of hardships.

Back in front of the microphone after a nearly three-year stint with the Milwaukee Bucks, Doc Rivers had the chance to talk about his experience coaching the Greek superstar in the final years of his tenure with the team, and it certainly wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

“He’s not easy, because he plays at this crazy downhill pace. He’s really a difficult guy,” Rivers said in an appearance on the Bill Simmons Podcast, released on Friday. “I was telling someone this: he has this great passing ability, but he doesn’t have a super IQ at the same time. It’s really a strange thing.

“And he really has only one way. Downhill, force, force, force. Every play he wants to force it.”

Rivers joined the Bucks partway through the 2023-24 season following the firing of Adrian Griffin.

Though he helped the side reach the playoffs that season and in 2024-25, the Bucks were eliminated in the first round on both occasions. Antetokounmpo was sidelined with injury that first season, but played through a shoulder ailment the following year in the five-game series loss to the Indiana Pacers.

It all fell apart last year, as Antetokounmpo played only 36 games in the regular season and the Bucks crawled to a 32-50 record, finished 11th in the East and missed the playoffs.

That finish, compounded by the Bucks’ inability to build on their 2021 NBA championship, ultimately led Antetokounmpo to request a trade from the only team he’s known through his 13-year career.

Now with the Heat — who have started 3-6 in the Antetokounmpo era — Rivers hopes the 31-year-old two-time MVP can iron out his play under the tutelage of Miami coach Erik Spoelstra.

“And there’s times where I wish he’d do one thing; I wish he’d learn how to execute better. He’s one of those guys, and you get a lot of them from the U.S., AAU guys who never needed to execute because they can do it on their own. But that doesn’t help the team,” Rivers said. “And I told Giannis this: the thing he needs to still learn is the value of execution. How important it is, when you’re in practice and at shootaround, to lock in on execution. Now he has a coach who’s as good as there is at execution.”