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Giannis Antetokounmpo made the decision to sign a Supermax contract extension and stay in Milwaukee. Bucks fans and the organization rejoiced at the news but the NBA league office has reason to celebrate too.
On the daily Locked On Bucks Podcast, host Kane Pitman reacts to Giannis signing an extension in Milwaukee and how his decision to stay may have changed the course of NBA History.
Kane Pitman: I found myself thinking about Dirk Nowitzki a lot when Giannis signed. We speak about LeBron James and we speak about Michael Jordan, I think Jordan was in year seven when he won a title and I think LeBron was actually in year nine. Giannis Antetokounmpo is seven years down and in the current day, we hear people so often being labeled as losers and people say they can't win and they can't get it done in the playoffs. That probably has contributed to players moving in this generation where players aren't expected to re-sign with their original teams. If Giannis left everything he'd been through in Milwaukee and the type of person he was and the values that we know that he does have and was not willing to sign in Milwaukee, you can criticize the team that they have and perhaps the coach and what's going on and how they're building this team together, but you can't say that the Bucks aren't going into this season as a contender. So if he still left Milwaukee despite that, then the league had a serious problem with the Supermax contracts and the fact that players just simply didn't care about it. We've already seen guys like Anthony Davis force his way to LA so I thought that this was a really critical moment in NBA history in terms of the direction the league takes. Now I don't think that everyone is going to go down the Giannis Antetokounmpo path, but it's not lost on me the fact that Dirk is the one guy that we all think about.
