Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are at a crossroads, according to co-owners Wes Edens and Jimmy Haslam. In an interview with ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Edens and Haslam effectively put the ball in Antetokounmpo’s court: If the 31-year-old superstar wants to stay in Milwaukee, he can sign an extension. If he doesn’t, then the team will trade him. Keeping him on the roster with an expiring contract is not an option.
“Giannis is going into the last year [of his contract],” Edens told ESPN. “So one of two things will happen: Either he will be extended or he’ll be traded.”
Edens added: “The likelihood you’ll let him just kind of play out the last year, we can’t afford that. It’s not consistent with what’s good for the organization. That’s not a Giannis issue. That’s any player that’s in their last year.”
For all the confusion around Antetokounmpo’s future and the mixed messages he has sent publicly, this is refreshingly simple. Maybe Antetokounmpo decides he’ll sign a four-year, $275 million contract extension on Oct. 1 and stay with the franchise that drafted him in 2013. Maybe he decides he can’t commit to a team this far away from championship contention. Either way, this saga will end.
That is the way the owners are framing it, anyway. But this story is a bit more complicated. For one, the Bucks have to determine how hard they’re going to push to convince Antetokounmpo to extend. Their big, desperate move last summer — using the stretch provision on Damian Lillard in order to sign Myles Turner — already looks awful. Would they trade multiple first-round picks on draft night to acquire another star? That kind of move could backfire even faster without assurance that it’s enough to keep Antetokounmpo.
Another question: If they do put Antetokounmpo on the market, what would they consider an acceptable return? Are they prioritizing draft picks? Do they need to get some of their own draft capital back? Does a young star have to be part of the trade package?
Complicating this further: The team’s ownership structure dictates that it has two rotating “controlling owners.” Edens is the controlling owner until 2028, at which point Haslam, who purchased Marc Lasry’s 25% stake in 2023, will assume that role. “The Jimmy partnership is unbelievably good,” Edens told ESPN, and both rebuffed the notion that they are anything but united. To people around the league, though, it’s unclear who will actually be making the decisions.
From ESPN:
“This has nothing to do with Giannis and whether he asks out,” said one source with knowledge of the team’s operations. “It’s about who’s making the decision on whether to trade Giannis, and I don’t think anyone knows that. I deal with them all the time and honestly it depends on the day.
“They’re not even close to being ready to make a decision like that.”
…
Those who have done business with the Bucks, including teams that inquired about Antetokounmpo before the trade deadline, told ESPN that Haslam was more involved in decisions than before. One team owner even had direct negotiations with Haslam rather than Edens about a potential deal for Antetokounmpo, multiple sources with knowledge of the discussions told ESPN.
“We mostly dealt with [GM Jon] Horst,” an executive with one of the teams that heavily engaged with the Bucks told ESPN. “But our impression was that Jimmy was really the one who would decide this.”
Said an executive with another team that engaged in talks for Antetokounmpo, “There were clearly multiple owners there, but you just got that feeling that internally, Jimmy is driving more of that train.”
Around the deadline, Antetokounmpo’s suitors came to the conclusion that the Bucks were not serious about trading him. It sounds like, if he’s not willing to make a long-term commitment to the team, that will change this offseason. As straightforward as this seems, though, it remains unclear how many twists and turns are ahead.
