Kristen Lappas grew up on Villanova basketball. It helped her make a film about Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Kristen Lappas missed a week of elementary school every year to sit behind the bench at the Big East Tournament. She rode the Villanova team bus to Providence, Georgetown, and Boston College. And when your dad is the coach, you get to fly with the Wildcats to Hawaii.

“I remember being 7 or 8 years old with my brother in Maui and we’re playing Marco Polo in the pool with Kerry Kittles, Alvin Williams, and Jason Lawson,” Lappas said.

Lappas spent her childhood on the road with her father, Steve, as he coached Villanova for nine seasons. Steve Lappas and his wife, Harriet, wanted the coaching job to be a family thing. Everyone was so invested that Kristen Lappas, her mother, and brother had to watch Villanova games in separate rooms when they weren’t courtside.

“They’d be going crazy on the ref or whatever and they couldn’t watch it together,” Steve Lappas said.

It was impossible to know then that those trips — “Great memories,” Steve Lappas said — were laying the foundation for a Hollywood career.

Kristen Lappas, the director of a newly released documentary about Giannis Antetokounmpo, finished each Villanova trip by writing a short story. She interviewed her father’s players about what they ate for breakfast, jotted down the things she and her brother did, and turned the memories into a book.

“It was called The Big Trip,” said Lappas, whose documentary Giannis: The Marvelous Journey premieres Monday on Amazon Prime. “My mom was like, ‘See, you were a storyteller back then.’ ”

Thomas Lappas left Greece when he was 15, moving alone to New York City to go to school.

“But he ended up hanging around with other people from his village in Greece and a lot of them were going to the racetrack,” said his son, Steve. “So he ended up not finishing high school and went to work.”

He was drafted into the Army during World War II — “They put a subway token in there so you couldn’t say you couldn’t get there,” Steve Lappas said — and took a bullet at the Battle of the Bulge. Thomas Lappas raised his family, which included Steve and his two brothers, in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan and worked at a floral shop until late at night.

“He was trying to accomplish the American dream for his sons,” Kristen Lappas said. “And that’s a story that I heard my whole life.”

Her grandfather’s story — and her love of basketball — allowed Kristen Lappas to feel a connection with Antetokounmpo, whose family emigrated from Nigeria to Greece before he was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2013 NBA draft. Lappas followed Antetokounmpo’s career from the start — “Greeks feel a sense of pride when another Greek is doing something amazing,” she said — and met him in 2019 when ESPN sent her to Athens for a story.

Lappas stayed in touch with Antetokounmpo, which proved vital when she landed in 2022 with Words and Pictures. The production company wanted to make a movie about “The Greek Freak.” Lappas was the perfect person for it.

“I felt a sense of pride knowing my grandfather did all of that so my dad and his brothers could have a better life,” Lappas said. “Seeing Giannis’ story, which is the ultimate immigrant story about a mom and dad who literally sacrificed everything to give their four sons a better life, that was something that was really important to me in terms of making sure we got that part right, because that’s a personal story for me, as well.”

Antetokounmpo asked Lappas before they started filming why this was the time to make a documentary. His life story had already been turned into a Disney movie and there have been books written about his rise. He was the NBA’s MVP in 2019 and 2020, won the NBA title in 2021 and remains one of the sport’s premier players. But he’s just 29 years old and has plenty of basketball to play. He wondered if this was the right time to tell his story himself.

“My response was that this is a fascinating moment in your life. You say you want to play in the NBA for 20 years. You’re at 10, the halfway mark,” Lappas said. “What a wonderful place to stop and reflect on your journey. This is the story of an immigrant family and it can speak to so many people.

“I really do hope that people who aren’t basketball fans but fans of good stories find something to relate to in this wonderful immigrant story about a group of people who worked really hard and look at where they are. That really spoke to him. That ability to reach immigrant kids is the reason why he was like ‘Let’s do this now.’ ”

She traveled five times to Greece, met Antetokounmpo and his family in Milwaukee, and interviewed the basketball superstar for six hours.

Lappas attended Holy Child School in Rosemont from kindergarten through eighth grade and moved before high school when her father was hired by UMass. She graduated from Boston College in 2009 with dreams of being an on-air talent. But she became enamored with the other side of the camera during an ESPN internship and has since worked on a slew of sports documentaries. Giannis is her biggest yet. It is about an NBA superstar, but the director said it is not a basketball movie.

“We could’ve made it a basketball movie. We chose to focus on the family story of immigrant parents working to make a life for their family,” Kristen Lappas said. “The broad strokes of the story were known, but I don’t think the intimate details of their upbringing and his father’s passing and how that impacted him as a man and a player, I don’t think people have ever heard those stories.”

Steve Lappas won a city championship at Bronx High School of Science and played college ball at City College of New York. His father — the guy who came to America and worked all those hours at the floral shop — wanted to know what was next. The son said he wanted to become a coach.

“He said, ‘You’re going to make a living with a ball?’ He couldn’t understand it,” said Steve Lappas, who now lives in Malvern as his wife works at Malvern Prep.

Lappas found a way. He was an assistant on Rollie Massimino’s staff in 1985 when Villanova won the national championship and returned to the Main Line as the head coach when Massimino left for UNLV. He raised his family in Chester County, excusing Kristen Lappas from school whenever there was room on the team bus and always saving room for her in film study.

“When the movie Remember The Titans came out, his assistants were like, ‘Oh my gosh, that little girl in the movie was you,’” Kristen Lappas said.

The coaching gig became a family affair. Even Lappas’ father bought in.

“He came to every game and even practices. He loved it,” Steve Lappas said. “He would get into altercations at Madison Square Garden. People yelling, ‘Hey Lappas, shut up.’ He wanted to start a fight with them.”

The son spent 17 seasons as a Division I coach and now works as a commentator for CBS. He made a living from a ball. Steve Lappas’ son Pete is an assistant at New Jersey Institute of Technology and his daughter made an introspective film about one of the sports’ most popular players. They, too, are making a living from a ball. And for the Lappas kids, it all started with those trips with the Wildcats.

“It’s not a job, it’s a passion. I’m so happy that both of them found a passion,” Steve Lappas said. “I think that’s the most important thing in life. I told them for years that ever since I got into basketball, I don’t think I’ve worked a day in my life. I worked hard, but I don’t feel like I ever worked. I think that’s how they are. They love what they do and that’s a gift to be able to do that.”