The threat of abandonment is ever-present for small-market organizations and fan bases, and Giannis Antetokounmpo found himself cast as a potential heartbreaker in December. The two-time MVP wasn’t yet a free agent, but he had to decide whether to sign a $228 million supermax contract extension. If he agreed to the richest deal in NBA history, Milwaukee would retain a favorite son who had become a global icon. If he didn’t, he would proceed to free agency and the Bucks would be forced to play out the season under a cloud of uncertainty and nonstop rumors.
When judgment day came Dec. 15, Antetokounmpo, his family, his agents, Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and a few team officials quietly assembled at Schlitz Park, an office complex that abuts the Milwaukee River and bears the name of the iconic Milwaukee brewery. Standard operating procedure dictated that Antetokounmpo should do his best to make a spectacle. Instead, the meeting was kept secret, per his request, so he could put pen to paper and then break the news with a smiling Instagram post that read: “This is my home, this is my city.”
Antetokounmpo posed for pictures and the group shared a champagne toast, but the vibe was intimate, not rowdy, and the signing was treated like a solemn, career-defining moment for many in attendance. Bucks General Manager Jon Horst collected the original contract and now keeps it secure in a location he adamantly refuses to disclose, and team president Peter Feigin sought an autograph from Antetokounmpo to commemorate the landmark agreement.
“I was three feet away from Giannis when he signed, and I probably never stopped hugging him,” Feigin recalled during a late-June interview at a Milwaukee sports bar. “Having the MVP say this is where I want to be, this is where I want to live, that was the best. It was an endorsement for the city. It was relief, then happiness and elation.”
While Antetokounmpo’s decision tied him to Milwaukee for his prime years, it also marked the culmination of a painstaking, transformative journey for the 26-year-old forward and the Bucks, who have landed in the Finals for the first time since 1974, when Abdul-Jabbar roamed the paint.
Step by step
When Antetokounmpo arrived in Milwaukee in 2013 as a skinny 19-year-old from Greece, he famously had never tasted a smoothie, and teammate Caron Butler felt the need to warn him not to wear a hooded sweatshirt at night, lest he attract police attention. The Bucks were adrift, a largely irrelevant franchise playing in the aging Bradley Center. They hadn’t won a playoff series since 2001 and had cycled through six coaches in 10 years. In Antetokounmpo’s rookie year, the Bucks finished 15-67, the worst record in the league.
The surest paths to salvation from such depths: a large financial infusion or a superstar talent, and the Bucks enjoyed both. Lasry and Wes Edens, two New York hedge fund managers, purchased the Bucks for $550 million in 2014 and set about polishing up their distressed asset. With help from a $250 million public financing package, the new regime built a glittering downtown practice facility in 2017, opened the 17,000-seat Fiserv Forum in 2018 and, perhaps most ambitiously, began work on Deer District, a 30-acre downtown redevelopment project that includes restaurants, an apartment building and a forthcoming hotel.
Even the fanciest stage is only as good as its headliner. As Antetokounmpo added layers of muscle and nuance to his game, he progressed steadily from a bench player to a starter to an all-star to an MVP. Horst first realized that the Bucks had something truly special during the 2015 playoffs, when Antetokounmpo was 20 years old.
“Giannis takes two power dribbles with his left hand,” Horst said during a recent conversation in midtown Atlanta. “He turns in and knocks Taj [Gibson] — who is in his prime — under the rim and dunks on him. It was a seminal moment in a massive game. He physically dominated a much older, highly accomplished defensive player. I remember thinking to myself at the time, ‘Oh, s—-.’ ”
But Antetokounmpo’s coming-of-age story didn’t play out in isolation. From the new owners to a young front office to Antetokounmpo’s sidekick, Khris Middleton, the Bucks grew up together.
Middleton came to Milwaukee in 2013 as an unproven second-round pick and blossomed into a two-time all-star. His below-the-rim game is based on grace and craft, while the highflying Antetokounmpo is pure strength and power. Antetokounmpo has never really sought the spotlight, but now he can’t avoid it; Middleton has a knack for remaining in the shadows no matter how well he plays.
“Khris is the heart of this team, and Giannis is the soul of this team,” Bucks guard Jrue Holiday explained.
In the next breath, Antetokounmpo said that he and Middleton had recently mused about their bond, telling his teammate, “The day you retire is going to be the toughest day in my career, because I’ve been with you the whole time.”
Horst, who remembers joining the Bucks as a “very naive, very hungry, very curious” man in 2008, was lured away from the Detroit Pistons by the promise of greater career opportunities. After replacing his mentor, John Hammond, in 2017 and becoming the NBA’s youngest general manager at age 34, Horst was thrown into the fire with several difficult decisions, including the firing of Jason Kidd as coach and the hiring of Mike Budenholzer in 2018.
The business side operated in parallel. When Feigin arrived in 2014, the Bucks had fewer than 3,000 season ticket holders and their home games against the Chicago Bulls were overrun by fans wearing red and black. By the time the Bucks clinched their Finals trip with a road win in Atlanta on Saturday, 25,000 fans gathered for an outdoor viewing party in Milwaukee and countless more greeted the team plane. The season ticket holders list is now capped around 12,000, and Forbes recently valued the Bucks at more than $1.6 billion, nearly triple the 2014 sale price.
“Billions,” Feigin said, when asked to estimate Antetokounmpo’s financial impact on the city of Milwaukee. “[If it were allowed], you would pay superstars two to three times what they currently make. It’s really hard to put a value on having an MVP in your market with his personality and international significance. Those are the quantitative measures. There’s also the qualitative: the sense of pride.”
A rocky road
Along the way, Antetokounmpo drew criticism for his poor outside shooting and foul shooting. The low-key Middleton became a punching bag for fans who wondered whether he was dynamic enough to be the second-best player on a title team. Horst and the ownership group were maligned for trading guard Malcolm Brogdon rather than paying to keep him. And Budenholzer, a headstrong coach, faced constant hot-seat talk because of Milwaukee’s playoff disappointments. As one counterbalance to the outside noise, the Bucks have placed hand-selected photos of each player in their practice facility to positively reinforce team-first sacrifices.
This year’s postseason breakthrough has featured plenty of hurdles and arrows, too. Pushed to the brink by Durant, Milwaukee needed to win back-to-back elimination games to survive the Brooklyn Nets in the second round. During that series, Budenholzer received scattered boos from the home crowd and Antetokounmpo was mercilessly heckled by Nets fans for his deliberate free throw shooting routine and occasional air balls. Even Abdul-Jabbar predicted the Nets would eliminate his old franchise. Then, ESPN’s “First Take” lamented the idea of the Bucks making the Finals because, as host Molly Qerim Rose put it, Milwaukee was a “terrible” city compared to larger-market alternatives.
“You couldn’t understand the pulse of the city any better than how upset, to the core, people were at ‘First Take’s’ insults,” said Feigin, who publicly invited the ESPN hosts to tour the city with him. “It literally reverberated. After we posted our response, everyone was pounding their chests. I’ve never gotten more pats on the back at a game.”
The biggest test of all came when Antetokounmpo hyperextended his left knee during Game 4 of the East finals against the Hawks. After eight years of maturing into Milwaukee’s franchise centerpiece, Antetokounmpo was forced to watch from the sideline as his teammates won two straight games to clinch the long-awaited Finals berth.
Yet close observers of Antetokounmpo have marveled at his recent growth before the injury and his poise after it. Horst pointed to his star’s ability to “calm his mind” and hit clutch free throws in Game 7 against the Nets, noting that Antetokounmpo had the “confidence and assertiveness” to put himself in position to be fouled in pressure moments when other players might not.
Several Bucks players said that Antetokounmpo has been an ever-present figure and vocal presence over the past week, placing his sense of responsibility to the group over any individual disappointment. And Budenholzer chuckled at the sight of Antetokounmpo stepping far out onto the court — risking a delay-of-game call — to encourage his teammates during their closeout win over Atlanta.
“[It was great] to see that kind of leadership, that kind of connection, that kind of commitment from a player you know would be dying to be out there and playing,” Budenholzer said. “I just loved his energy on the bench. I loved his togetherness that he brings to our group. There’s a bittersweetness to him not being able to play these last two games. … I think he appreciates what his teammates can do.”
Indeed, Antetokounmpo has long been more concerned with gratitude than leverage. The Bucks met before the 2019-20 season to strategize how to handle the upcoming onslaught of free agency questions. Antetokounmpo made it clear that he didn’t want to be a distraction and then proceeded to deflect questions about his future all season.
Horst and company then carefully crafted their pitch as their star approached free agency: Antetokounmpo would be consulted and included in big decisions, but not overloaded with off-court responsibilities. He would be surrounded by high-character teammates and a shot-creator such as Holiday who could help balance the offensive load. Most importantly, he would be supported by familiar faces who were fully invested in helping him win a title.
“[Antetokounmpo is] the type of guy who is always going to care that John Hammond drafted him,” Horst said. “It starts with loyalty. He’s also a very humble, family-oriented guy. He doesn’t have a need or want for all the glitz and glamour. Giannis wants to have an opinion and to talk about what he’s feeling and what he might need, but it’s never player-specific or against his current teammates. He never wants to be in the position where he’s making decisions.”
The Bucks view Antetokounmpo as their Tim Duncan, and their executives are quick to note that Antetokounmpo has plenty of high-level basketball left in his long-term future. Of course, Milwaukee needs its superstar back on the court as soon as possible, with their Finals showdown against the Phoenix Suns opening Tuesday. Budenholzer said Saturday that Antetokounmpo’s availability will be handled on a “day-to-day” basis, providing no specifics on a possible return date. Antetokounmpo hasn’t taken questions since his injury last Tuesday and wasn’t scheduled to participate in Finals media day Monday.
Deep in the bowels of Fiserv Forum lies a well-appointed trophy room that serves as an unintentional reminder of Milwaukee’s modest history. Replicas of Antetokounmpo’s two MVP trophies and Horst’s 2019 executive of the year trophy sit in a case next to the Bucks’ lone championship trophy, which is engraved with the names of Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and the rest of the 1971 roster. So much time has passed since that zenith — 50 years — that the trophy’s silver cup design predates the Larry O’Brien Trophy’s gold ball design. The entire 1980s, 1990s and 2000s are unaccounted for in the glass enclosure, decades lost to time.
Antetokounmpo’s splendid rise and his record-setting recommitment have the Bucks in position to finally add some more hardware. The pieces are in place, if only his knee will cooperate.
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