Photo Credit: EPA-EFE/CJ GUNTHER
Giannis Wants To Win A Championship With The Bucks, If Not He May Leave In 2020
Before the start of the 2016 season, the Milwaukee Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo reached an agreement on a four-year, $100 million contract extension.
This means that Giannis will become a free agent in 2020, which still is over two years away. But Eurohoops asked Antetokounmpo about becoming a free agent nontheless and Giannis’ statement was more than interesting.
“If the time comes, we’ll see, because the NBA is a business. Even my team, the Bucks, they might say to me: “Giannis we have not won the title after five years. You are our leader, so why we don’t win?” And they will bring in another guy. They might do this move. We have to win a championship with my team. The right moves should be made in order for this to happen. Nobody won a championship by himself. You have to get the right players. The front office and the general manager have to do their work too. Everyone has to work.
Everyone has to work on his part in order to win a championship. If I do my part and some others don’t, then a change would have to happen. If this change does not happen, then, the Bucks can move forward without me, or I can move on without the Bucks. However, my goal is to stay here and win a championship with my team.”
Loyalty is a dying art in the world of sports. Players like Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Dirk Nowitzki are the last breed of NBA stars to never “jump ship” and leave when their team is not performing up to par. The ability to remain apart of a losing team is something only the best can do; not particularly skill wise, but mentally. Players often move around the league for two reasons; to contend for a championship or for the green paper that the world revolves around.
But, loyalty goes both ways, and in today’s NBA even trying to be loyal to a team seems impossible. We’ve seen it with Isaiah Thomas this past summer and got another reminder with the Blake Griffin trade.
(Turn on subtitles if you don’t speak Greek.)
