Interview: Mirin Fader, Journalist and Author of "Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP"
In this episode Jessica Luther interviews journalist Mirin Fader about her new book, Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP, which comes out August 10. They talk about Mirin’s basketball skills, how she got into writing about sports, and, of course, about NBA champion and two-time MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Jessica: Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Jessica Luther, and this week I'm excited to be talking to Mirin Fader, a feature writer at The Ringer whose work I've long admired. She's the author of a new book, Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP. But as I like to do, I'm going to let her introduce herself.
Mirin: My name is Mirin and I am a features writer, and I just really like telling stories of athletes who you think you know, and I like bringing the human side to sports.
Jessica: Not just feature writer. You're now an author!
Mirin: [laughs] Maybe I'm in denial. Yes.
Jessica: You're going to have to add that to your bio, Mirin.
Mirin: Yeah, apparently that's what's going on right now. I never thought it would actually happen. It is very cool.
Jessica: Yeah, it's very cool. I do want to start…I want to back up in your life. Did you play sports, growing up?
Mirin: Yes.
Jessica: What was your relationship to sports as a child and into adulthood?
Mirin: Yeah, so, I loved basketball. I started playing when I was 10 years old and I absolutely just fell in love with it the second I started. I was not good, but I was obsessed with it. [laughter] And that was the era of UConn's dominance with Taurasi and Sue Bird. And I wanted to be just like them. I slicked my hair back so I could look like Taurasi with the bun.
Jessica: So you and Giannis have the same love for Taurasi!
Mirin: Right.
Jessica: There's pictures going around that he had put the jersey, drew the Jersey for Taurasi
on the wall.
Mirin: I know. I love that. Taurasi was one of the first jerseys I have. It's like this bright, like, not pink, but you know, the Mercury color that they had. And I wanted to play basketball, and so that's what I did from when I was 10 til I was 20. I was really playing every second, AU, all of that. I ended up playing my first year in college and then I stopped.
Jessica: Oh, wow. So you were good.
Mirin: [laughs] I became good, somewhat good. Yeah. I was just obsessed, and I never thought of doing anything else. And then, you know, of course life goes on. So I was like, what can I do to still be in basketball? And so I was like, I should be a writer. And that’s kind of how that happened.
Jessica: That's my next question, because I wanted to know how you got into sportswriting. Your feature writing is so spectacular.
Mirin: Oh, thank you.
Jessica: I think you're one of the best profile writers out there in sports these days. So you just decided at that point, when you were in college. Do you major, did you go to J school? Journalism school.
Mirin: Yeah. So, the first college I went to was Lewis and Clark. And when I was there, I just had such a tough time during basketball. And I was like, this is not going the way that I want it to, and I think this is it with basketball, you know? I'm not going to play overseas. I think this is it. And I started having kind of like an intellectual awakening outside of basketball, and I took this women writers class and it was all women, and that's when I got introduced to Toni Morrison and I just fell in love with her writing and her books. I was like, I need to become a writer. The professor said, like, “women weren't supposed to hold the pen.” And there was just something about that that motivated me. I was like, man, I want to be a writer! And it's funny because I've been writing my whole life. Like, the first day that I played basketball was the first day I started writing in my diary.
Jessica: Oh wow. That's a good story!
Mirin: Because it was just like, I was so excited about basketball, and I was like, I should write it down or, you know…And so I just became a diary person from like fifth grade all the way up. But you know, I didn't really think anything of it. I was just like, yeah, I love this, but I never thought, oh, I could be a writer. And it wasn't until basketball was kind of going one way and life was happening the other way, I was just like, if I become a sportswriter, then I can still be on the court, you know? But then I actually fell in love with the writing way more than the basketball. So I'm really happy that that was a shift for me.
Jessica: You're a phenomenal writer.
Mirin: You're a phenomenal writer! I’m–
Jessica: You’re such a good storyteller.
Mirin: Thank you.
Jessica: I feel like that's something that I'm always thinking about and working on. I came up through the academy where we weren't really taught how to write stories. How did you build this career around feature writing in particular?
Mirin: You know, when I started out and I was like, I want to be a features writer, you know, at my first job at the Orange County Register, that was not a popular thing to say. It was like, why don't you want to cover the football game on Friday night and write a gamer? And I was like, taking stats on my own. Doing that is not what I want to do, you know? So I would just pitch a million stories to them. And I mean, to even get there, that's how I started. I would just pitch to Slam magazine in college and SBNation, a couple of places, and wasn't really getting a lot of internships because I went to a small school. I ended up transferring to Occidental College. So I got my start by freelancing and then I reached out to over 50 places upon graduation and I either got ghosted or heard no or didn't hear back, and only one place responded, the Orange County Register.
And so I was there from 2013, when I graduated to 2017, and every Monday I would come with like five more pitches, and it was on the stuff that nobody wanted to do like little league baseball, you know, a junior college pitcher or, you know, some youth story. And so it was a lot of grinding and trying to make it. And I was freelancing in my like second and third year there for ESPNW and Bleacher Report. You know, they had reached out to me, but I wasn't able to get a full-time job, and it wasn't until they sent me to Lithuania in 2018 to cover LaMelo Ball. I came back and I got a full-time job at Bleacher. So that's how I started, really.
Jessica: What a sentence. “And they sent me to Lithuania covering LaMelo Ball.” [laughter] Do you have a favorite story?
Mirin: I think the story that I feel most…I don't know, sentimental about, is The Legacy of Mambacita, the Gigi Bryant story, because, you know, everyone was writing about Kobe when he died and she was just kind of a footnote in all the coverage I was reading, and I just kind of saw that and I was like, her story matters too though. What about her? And what about her teammates? And then the only things that were done, it was like, she loved UConn, she wanted to go to the WNBA, but I wanted to know, like, what kind of friend was she? Was she the girl that I would want to have a sleepover with? And so it's really hard, as you know, as a journalist, to call people right in the middle of their grief, and let alone at the beginning. So, it was a huge challenge but I got to interview like 30 of her closest friends and teammates. And so I'm just proud of that story because I know that that one just really mattered to me also as a former girl that loved basketball, that knows what it's like to feel that way, like we were just talking about. And I don't know, I just felt really connected to the writing process with that one.
Jessica: When we talked about…We did an episode after they both died and…Yeah. I mean, I only played basketball for a few years in middle school. I'm six feet tall–
Mirin: I'm so jealous. I'm five feet tall. [laughter]
Jessica: Okay. But I think the only time when I really cried recording that was talking about her and like her teammates and how much…I want to cry now, even thinking about like her middle school basketball team and how important that was to me as I'm going through puberty to have been a part of that team. But of course, I have you on the show today because you have a book coming out.
Mirin: A book!
Jessica: A book. It hits shelves August 10th, everyone. So go pre-order it. Right now. It's titled Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP – as in the Milwaukee Bucks superstar, as in the newly crowned NBA champion and NBA finals MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo. So, your timing is impeccable, Mirin. [Mirin laughs] So tell me, let's start at the beginning of the book. Like, when did you actually decide to do a book on Giannis, and why?
Mirin: So, I write at The Ringer now, but before I was at Bleacher Report, and this was summer 2019, and I saw that Alex, Giannis’s youngest brother, was one of the top prospects in the area, and Bleacher Report liked to do a lot of, you know, “who's the next big prospect?” So I was just like, you know, I'm curious to see if this kid is good. Like, it must be hard to have three older brothers, let alone somebody like Giannis who's in the NBA. And Giannis hadn't won his first MVP yet, but he was a superstar for sure. And I went to their house and I was just expecting to talk with Alex. I didn't think Giannis would be there, but he was there. [laughs]
Jessica: Oh, wow.
Mirin: Yeah. So it just so happened to work out where I got to spend the day with them and interview Giannis and his mom and Alex and the other brother Kostas.
Jessica: And the book opens there.
Mirin: Yes. And so I spent the day with them and I did the reporting for that story, and I was just so moved by the more vulnerable sides of Giannis, because I think at the time everyone just kind of talked about his freakish athleticism and they didn't really talk about, you know, who he is as a person and what he's like as a big brother and just how he's gone through so much with the death of his father. And so when it came out, it actually ended up revealing far more about Giannis than Alex, and I had been trying to write a book for a couple of years. And as you know, it's so hard to find a literary agent that believes in you, and also an idea that they think will be sellable and not just like a good story idea.
Jessica: Right.
Mirin: I think that’s the biggest difference between writing long form and books, it has to sell. And I sent it to this literary agent who was really the one, you know? I had talked to a lot before and they're like, “I like you, but you're too young.” Or, “You're on the rise, but not there yet.” Or like, “I like this idea. I don't think it'll sell,” you know? There was just like everything wrong all the time, but this agent was great and just respected me and believed in me. And I sent him the story and I was like, what do you think? And he's like, yes, this is it. So I did the proposal in December 2019, shopped it around early 2020, and then signed the book deal March 2020, and then the world shut down. [laughs] So yeah.
Jessica: We – Kavitha and I – tell this story all the time, but like we literally finished final edits, and then Rudy Gobert got COVID and we were like, we actually need to add something to the book. So we were like, just in passing. So you were just starting. Because one of my questions was like, “Did you go to Greece, Mirin?” but obviously not, [laughs] because you haven't gone anywhere.
Mirin: Right. The craziest thing is that I was supposed to go to Greece, you know? That was in the works, and so I couldn't. And because this is my first book I was nervous and I wanted to do a good job, so I just flew to Milwaukee in February 2020, like, late before the world shut down.
Jessica: It sounds cold.
Mirin: Yes, it was very cool. [Jessica laughs] And thank god I did that because literally I would not be able to talk to anyone in person for the next year. And I ended up doing 221 interviews total, but you know, most of them from my apartment. But yeah, that trip was clutch because at the time, like, I remember being there and my mom was like, can you find some sanitizer in Milwaukee? They're all sold out in LA. I was like, no, they're not! There's no way that sanitizer…You can't find sanitizer in Los Angeles? You know, but little did I know in like a week and a half, it would all go to…
Jessica: Wow. So you interviewed over 200 people. I wanted to ask about access and like, did Giannis understand that you were writing a book about him? Did he have thoughts? [laughs]
Mirin: Not at the time, because literally when I went to their house, it was for the story. And then so I told Alex after that, I was like, hey, I want to write a book. And then he steered me to the agents, and then we had some conversations. But then I had to actually do the proposal because it's hard to say, “Do you want to participate in something that doesn't exist?” Because I didn't have the deal!
Jessica: Yes. Right. That's such a weird…That freelancing space. Yeah. You've got to have something to ask, but having him makes it easier. Yeah, it's all chicken and egg.
Mirin: Exactly. Exactly. So I was like, just want to let you know, this is happening, I'm doing this proposal. And then, like I said, I flew to Milwaukee shortly after that and I talked with the brothers again and the family again, and then the world shut down. So unfortunately, you know, that was all I could do in person. I never could have predicted a pandemic when I'm trying to do a book on a very famous basketball player at a very critical moment in his life. But I did my best. I did my best.
Jessica: So, at some point you have to stop writing and then you can do edits. But there is like a point when the book went to the publisher and they started to literally print this book that's going to come out in August. When was that? Because it had to have been before last week.
Mirin: Yeah. Oh my god. So, it was due…So, I got the deal March 2020, and then it was due March 1st, 2021. So the manuscript was in beginning of March of this year, and then we did edits I would say through that month; my birthday was April 5th. We were pretty much locked in in April.
Jessica: So walk me through how…So, people ask Kavitha and I these questions all the time, because we had finished the book before we knew what was going to happen in the pandemic and we had a whole book on sports and it was like, how did you feel as everything unraveled? I was thinking about you because it was like, he goes down in the conference finals, it looks like his knee is very bad and he will be out for a long time. And then he comes back and he doesn't just come back. He's spectacular in the finals, right? Like, deservedly won the MVP. How do you, as the author of Giannis coming out and all, how did you feel during all of that?
Mirin: Well, he goes down and I lose my mind and I'm terrified. And you know, this whole thing, first of all…Let me just back up and say the original peg for the reason why it was coming out right now is because we thought he would still be in free agency, and that would be the biggest storyline of the offseason.
Jessica: Ha ha ha.
Mirin: Yeah. So that's why I only had one year to do the book! Most people get like two years. But then in December, as I’m midway through writing the book before my March deadline, he says, I'm staying. And I was like, well, at least I know the ending of the book! And so that was good, but then they decided to go on this incredible run in the playoffs and win the championship before I can write anything else. So we're actually in talks of potentially adding something to later additions. So, I'm trying to figure that out right now, but you know, you'll see in the way that it ends. I think it still very much holds up because it's the last chapter is titled Home and it is very much him finding home, not just in Milwaukee, but home in terms of like a comfortability in himself, his identities, his life. This is just the icing on the cake and the book is how he gets there.
But I knew that, you know, there's a risk because I'm writing about somebody in real time. Whoever writes the second Giannis book is going to do such an amazing job because there's so much fertile territory left, and Giannis is going to accomplish so much. So, I'm really looking forward to the next person's book. I think it's cool to have this as a moment in time capturing his journey iin real time, because a lot of sports books are about retired people, and sometimes when the player is retired he's looking back on his career with a kind of gauze and, you know, memory's a tricky thing. So, I liked that the memories were fresher and more in real time.
Jessica: Maybe you'll write the next one.
Mirin: Maybe! [laughter]
Jessica: I know it's such a thing to say to someone who just finished birthing a book. You're like, whoa…
Mirin: No, I definitely want it to. I definitely…I was like, you know, typical me, like, you need to have your book number two proposal in by December 2021, what's it going to be? And then they win the championship and everything goes crazy. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to think about the second book for a couple of months. [laughs]
Jessica: So let me ask you about Giannis, the basketball player. I mean, anyone who watched last week probably has an idea of how to answer this, but what makes him so good?
Mirin: He's so passionate, and he plays so hard, and he does things on the basketball court that are just so unique for somebody his size, like, a near seven footer to just take the ball from one end to the other. And when he goes into the paint he's like…It’s the most terrifying sight in the world. Like, there's nothing a defender can do. [laughs] They’re going to foul him or he's dunking on them. And you know, people just love how every night he'll give it his all. He might struggle for sure. He might have bad nights, but he's never going to like, not play hard. And I think that endears him to so many people.
Jessica: Yeah. We like that so much in our athletes, don't we? There's some that work ethic or something…
Mirin: Yeah. I agree, because it's really simple. Giannis’s life…Maybe it's been under-covered because it’s maybe not as sexy, but it's literally just like work hard, be a good teammate, sacrifice, uplift others, be a good human. Maybe people don't want that story, but that's what it is for him.
Jessica: What was something that you learned about him or his family or anything around him that genuinely surprised you when you were doing this project?
Mirin: Well, first thing is that they didn't intend to come to Greece. They actually were supposed to, and they did go to Germany, because his dad, Charles, was a soccer player and he was going to play there. And then he got injured. So Greece was like plan B. I wouldn't even call it a plan B. It was just something that they decided to do after going to Germany. You know, Greece is such a popular transit place for different types of immigrants or refugees going into different places. So it really ended up happening very serendipitously. And another thing I was not surprised to learn, but certainly very grateful to learn – there’s nothing surprising about this – but a lot of the book talks about the racism that he experienced, not just growing up, but now. Even though he has morphed into a superstar and he is a national hero, there are so many racist comments about him in Greece and, you know, murals desecrated with him. And so it was really important to me to have that in the book because I think it gets swept under the rug with his narrative.
Jessica: He seems like a nice guy.
Mirin: Mm-hmm. He’s very nice.
Jessica: I watched the Instagram live the day after, when he went to get Chick-fil-A.
Mirin: Yeah. The Instagram live. [laughs]
Jessica: The Instagram live. I mean, he seems very thoughtful in the way of, like, before he turned the camera on the woman he was ordering from, he asked her if it was okay for him to turn it on.
Mirin: Right. Right.
Jessica: And I was like, I don't even know if I would…Maybe if I was an NBA superstar, those are the kinds of things I would think. But yeah. Would you just, like, describe what he's like in person? What it's like to chat with Giannis?
Mirin: Yeah. So, my favorite memory with him was I was in their basement interviewing his brother, Alex, and, you know, Alex gets a phone call in the middle of the interview and he just answers it and he starts speaking Greek. And so I have no idea who he's talking to. And then the call is like 30 seconds long, it's all in Greek. And I was like, who is that? And he's like, oh, that's my brother. And I was like, isn't he here? You're talking about Giannis, right? Isn't he like upstairs? [Jessica laughs] And then he’s like, yeah, he just want to check on me. He just wanted to make sure I was okay in my interview…Which is just the most adorable–!
Jessica: Aww!
Mirin: You know? And so he’s just a big sweetheart, you know? And just so loving towards his brothers and his family. He is so intelligent. He is such a pleasure to listen to. He’s charismatic. He's somebody that vacillates between like goofball and prophet. He's very very funny, and he's very very intense, and all of these sides, I think, make him just very curious about the world and empathetic, and just easy to relate to. He is exactly, I think, the way everyone is coming to realize he is.
Jessica: That's so fun to learn that these guys that you like to watch play, that that's how they operate off the court.
Mirin: Yeah. Because I'm sure you've had this experience too, where we interview guys that are not so nice, and it's not fun.
Jessica: I mean, he could be however he wants to be and he'd still be a superstar, you know?
Mirin: Right, right.
Jessica: And so the fact that he…Yeah, I just find him very charming whenever I see any videos of him. So, you're now at The Ringer. Can you give us any hints as to what you're working on now, Mirin?
Mirin: [laughs] Well, I actually had a story come out today, on this Indigenous runner. Her name is Rosalie Fish. And this is actually one of my favorite stories that I've done, because it's an epidemic that I think people don't talk about as much, is the missing and murdered Indigenous women. And It is staggering, the statistics of Native women that go missing or are murdered with no consequences. And Rosalie Fish is a distance runner and she's about to start running for the University of Washington, and when she races she colors a red handprint over her mouth to signify the silencing of Native women. And she is a beautiful person. She is going to change the world, I think. I can see so many things that she can do with her life and I think she's just beginning. And running was also a way for her to cope with intense struggles with her own mental health and with the trauma that her family experienced.
So, the article talks about intergenerational trauma with Native Americans and the boarding schools that members of her family were forced into. And you know, there was actually a Daily episode on the New York Times podcast last week about these boarding schools. So, if anyone's interested, that story just went up today. And I have another story next week, shifting gears from track back to basketball, a draft story. So I'm excited about that.
Jessica: Do you sleep, Mirin? I feel like you're always publishing these long, smart pieces.
Mirin: Can you see these bags right here that I’ve got under… [Jessica laughs] I tried to put on some concealer for you, but no–
Jessica: She looks perfect and beautiful, everyone. [Mirin laughs] You cannot see those bags.
Mirin: I just feel like the last couple of days, like I haven't slept. It's funny, I had a 4:15am TV interview because it was on the east coast and I was so paranoid that I wasn't going to wake up. So I was like, I'm just not going to sleep. I'll sleep tomorrow or something. So I think after the book comes out, I'm going to take a very long nap for sure.
Jessica: That'll be great. [Mirin laughs] Well, thank you so much Mirin for finally…We should have had you on sooner, but finally coming on Burn It All Down. Good luck with the book. It comes out August 10th and it's titled Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP.
Mirin: Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. As I said before the pod, I'm a huge fan of yours, of this podcast, of all of you. So thank you for the work that you do, because honestly, it is so necessary, and I'm just very grateful to be on here.