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When it emerged that Giannis Antetokounmpo had signed a five-year supermax extension to stay with the Bucks, the celebration began in Milwaukee and spread, by association, to many of the NBA’s smaller markets. Only the Bucks will reap the direct benefits of employing the league’s back-to-back MVP, but hope springs from their decision for other franchises operating in the cold of the Midwest, under the constraints that come with more modest incomes and outside of cities in need. win over players instead of relying on their natural glamor. Those teams have stars of their own that they would very much like to keep. In a world where Antetokounmpo makes a five-year commitment rather than waiting to sign with another team in free agency next summer, that dream seems even more achievable.
The flow of the most talented players in the NBA tends to go in only one direction: towards the three or four most attractive cities and everything they have to offer. What this extension shows, however, is that even that kind of ongoing inevitability can be contained in the right circumstances. While the Bucks would love nothing more than Giannis spending his entire career in Milwaukee, at least a five-year extension allows the organization to carry out its project. Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton will have more time to modulate a working relationship with Jrue Holiday, who would have otherwise been acclimating to a new city and a new team in the middle of his decisive season. The Bucks aren’t exactly rich in young talent, but a commitment from Giannis allows the team to be a little more patient with a prospect like Donte DiVincenzo instead of trading him for a veteran. This entire franchise is still under pressure, but the source and nature of that pressure has changed. Rather than orient the team’s operations around convincing Antetokounmpo to stay, the Bucks just need to progress in a way that ensures the choice he’s already made.
How did the Bucks do it? Big market predators have been around for months, declaring their intentions to hunt down Giannis in ways that are as obvious as they are subtle. They could offer you the opportunity to play with other superstars. They could sell it on beaches and sun, or on life in a multicultural center. What they failed to offer was the city that he has called home since he was 18, or the satisfaction of a breakthrough on his own terms. Changing teams to win a title can only give the player a certain kind of satisfaction; After all, there’s a reason LeBron James returned to Cleveland, and that Kevin Durant, even after winning back-to-back championships with the Warriors, went to Brooklyn looking for something. When members of the Bucks organization conveyed optimism that Giannis would expand or re-sign with the team throughout this process, it could have been taken as an illusion, or perhaps the distorted perspective of someone too close to danger to see it through. what it was. In hindsight, it seems like they just got it.
What a player tells the media can’t always be taken as an absolute truth, but Giannis had already told anyone who was listening that he wanted to be like Dirk, Kobe and Tim Duncan, legends who spent their entire careers with one team. . In the midst of a frustrating exit from the 2020 playoffs, he characterized his thought process to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. “Some see a wall and enter [another direction], “he said.” I got through it. “A five-year extension is an even stronger statement. Some star players, even from the moment they join a team, look for a reason to leave. Antetokounmpo has seemed for a long time. the opposite: ready (and eager) to give the Bucks the benefit of the doubt, if only they could get it a little closer to a championship. Milwaukee apparently did enough to hit that threshold by trading Holiday (at no small cost ) and testing out a new cast of RPGs to sell a tight vision of the team’s future.
Since Jon Horst took over leadership of basketball operations in 2017, the Bucks have become one of the most creative problem solvers in the league. Within months of Horst’s promotion, Milwaukee managed to trade the increasingly outdated Greg Monroe and a couple of marginal draft picks to sign Eric Bledsoe. When the Bucks needed to rethink their center rotation, they signed Brook Lopez at a discount and made him a mainstay of tire protection and floor space. A few more picks brought in George Hill, who proved essential to Milwaukee in the playoffs by delivering the kind of shot that Bledsoe couldn’t. At the 2019 trade deadline, the Bucks surprised (and impressed) many in the league by turning over a stack of second-round picks to Nikola Mirotic, a bold idea that worked better in theory than in practice. Even the deal for Holiday was an unexpected development given the limited players and picks the Bucks had available to trade.
(The same could have been said of almost– signing and trading for Bogdan Bogdanovic, but the Bucks don’t exactly get credit for a deal that collapsed in public in real time).
It’s a tough job overall, but that level of activity is a guarantee for a superstar who will be leaving for the next five years of his career. The real enemy is complacency; Just because Antetokounmpo is back up with the team early doesn’t mean Milwaukee can treat its roster as complete or refuse to spend in the name of improving it. So far, the Bucks have done their best to insist they wouldn’t dream of it, and to make up for Malcolm Brogdon’s punt when they could have re-signed him in 2019. In the process, Milwaukee has assembled one of the smartest expensive in the league. That kind of expense only leads to more expenses, starting with a pricey new deal for Holiday if he opts to become a free agent next summer. However, that restricts the Bucks in the future it could matter less than the message it sends.
Of course, these are all very practical explanations of what could ultimately be a sentimental decision, or perhaps the line between the two is blurred when someone like Giannis will be paid $ 256 million to stay and play in his second home. . Either way, the fact that he chose that for himself is an accomplishment for the Bucks as a franchise and a significant setback against the forces of the tide that have doomed so many teams operating outside of NBA destination cities. It was a very long since a player of Antetokounmpo’s caliber decided to stick with his small-market team when he was given the option. To be fair, players of Antetokounmpo’s caliber rarely appear. That Milwaukee was able to draft him with the 15th pick is a franchise-altering aberration. However, what followed was a genuine link between a player and a city. It was an organizing effort, despite the rotation at all levels, to try new things and invest in the list before it was too late.
Other organizations are sure to look to the Bucks as a role model as they plan (and dread) the next free agency of their own stars. There are many things that are worth emulating and many that could never be. Sometimes it works the same way in the main office as it does on the court. You could copy the Milwaukee playbook. You could try replicating their list. However, any attempt to mimic what worked for the Bucks will eventually collapse under one simple truth: There is no one like Giannis.
