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As soon as the Milwaukee Bucks went down 0-3 in their second-round playoff series against the Miami Heat, fans and the media started crafting their takes about Giannis Antetokounmpo and his free agency decision in the 2021 offseason.
On the Locked On NBA Podcast, hosts John Karalis and Jake Madison explained why Bucks fans have to accept the fact that Giannis Antetokounmpo's free agency is the biggest story in the NBA right now and will continue to be for some time, as much as they don’t want to hear it.
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John Karalis: Milwaukee now is facing this uncertain future with Giannis Antetokounmpo. He's obviously extension eligible. He would be a free agent in the summer of 2021. There are a million different things that can happen here, a million different takes that we're going to start hearing. No one on this network has more experience with this stuff than you Jake Madison, host of the Locked On Pelicans and Locked On Anthony Davis for a long time….
Jake Madison: Yeah, now it’s Locked On Zion.
Bucks fans, I’m going to apologize in advance. We should be talking about what happened in this series. We should be talking about Coach Bud and his stubbornness to what he does as a coach and inability to make adjustments and change things in the middle of a playoff series, or from the regular season to the playoffs. We should be talking about the actual on-court stuff. We're not going to, no one around the league is going to when it comes to Giannis right now because of the future, and the stories are going to be about his future with the team.
This sucks, it doesn't feel fair, it's going to feel like the media is picking on your team. I thought that for a long time too, but it's not. These are just kind of the cold hard facts about how the NBA works. Chris Paul forced his way out of New Orleans after a successful playoff run with them, because he didn't want to be here anymore because they weren't going to keep winning. Same thing for Anthony Davis. They swept the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, got bounced out of the next round, and he wanted out by the middle of next season because the team just kind of hit their ceiling and weren't able to improve. And when you're a top-five player in Giannis’ case, top-one player, you want to win basketball games, you want to win titles, the regular season isn't enough. And looking at the deficiencies in this team in the playoffs, you've got to wonder a little bit.
The other thing is, he's gonna say all the right things right now. And he said to Yahoo after the fact, he's like, ‘No, I'm not going to ask for a trade or anything like that.' He said all the right things. All of these guys say the right things until they don't say the right thing. Like, again, you think, like, no way he's gonna leave, right? I'm not saying he is. But to just shut down the talk about him leaving or the fake trades that are gonna come through. I saw ESPN already did it where they kind of had a meme with Draymond Green looking at Giannis or something like that. It's gonna suck. But when you look at the history of the NBA, the recent history with star players like Anthony Davis, Chris Paul, and Jimmy Butler to an extent too. This is just how it goes. So it sucks. I'm sorry. But it doesn't mean that the media and John and I here or others shouldn't be talking about this and his future with the team.
