What Giannis' super-max means for him, the Bucks, and his spurned suitors – theScore

So, after all that, Giannis Antetokounmpo signed the damn thing.

The reigning Defensive Player of the Year and two-time MVP put one of his 19 new pens to paper on a $228-million super-max extension that keeps him under contract with the Milwaukee Bucks through the 2024-25 season.

His decision, a subject of intense speculation and uncertainty for over a year, has massive implications for the rest of the league. Here’s what it means for Antetokounmpo, the Bucks, and several teams that bent over backward to plan for his would-be 2021 free agency.

What it means for Antetokounmpo

Some will consider the decision to lock in for an additional five years as a head-scratcher. Antetokounmpo is an ascending 26-year-old star who could’ve waited to see how the 2020-21 season played out and then opted to sign the same deal next offseason. It’s obviously nice to lock in a quarter-billion dollars worth of long-term security, but even a devastating injury wouldn’t have prevented the Bucks, or any other team, from throwing the max at Antetokounmpo a few months from now.

At the same time, it’s been clear for a while Antetokounmpo is comfortable in Milwaukee, didn’t like the idea of packing up his life, and felt duty-bound to try to deliver a championship to the team that gave him his NBA shot seven years ago. It’s not hard to see why someone would value the idea of putting down roots when they spent the first 18 years of their life without a country.

Antetokounmpo has also made it clear that basketball and family are his focus. Moving to a bigger, glitzier market never seemed to factor into his thinking. If anything were to sway him, it would’ve been a better shot at winning a championship someplace else. Maybe that opportunity would’ve presented itself if he waited, but he’s still in a pretty good situation with the Bucks. This team finished with the NBA’s best record two years running, got outscored by a total of six points in the 2019 Eastern Conference finals, and was on pace for 70-plus wins last season before an Antetokounmpo injury and a global pandemic sapped their momentum.

It’s worth keeping in mind that Antetokounmpo can opt out of this deal when he’s 30 years old and presumably still in his prime. He can also try to force his way out earlier, but demanding a trade doesn’t seem to be in his nature. Even if he doesn’t win a title in Milwaukee, he’ll still be good enough to stack the championship odds in his favor next time he has a free-agency decision to make. Sure, delaying this decision until next offseason would’ve given him more information regarding the Bucks’ viability as a contender, but the benefit obviously outweighed the downside of playing a season under a cloud of his looming free agency.

What it means for the Bucks

It’s impossible to overstate what a relief this is for Milwaukee and the team’s fans. They can now enjoy something resembling an ordinary season instead of sweating through an agonizingly pressure-packed campaign in which every loss, cryptic soundbite, and hint of on- or off-court tension would’ve been picked apart and churned into content-mill grist.

We’ve seen in the past how uncertainty over a superstar’s future can become a distraction gnawing away at a team’s social fabric. Now, Antetokounmpo and his teammates can focus squarely on the task at hand: rectifying their last two postseason defeats.

That’s not to say the pressure is relieved entirely. The Bucks need to wash away the bitter taste of last season’s embarrassing second-round loss and convince Jrue Holiday to stick around long term. Mike Budenholzer still has to prove he can coach a championship team with an urgency to succeed in the playoffs. And Antetokounmpo may have committed to being there for five more years, but that doesn’t mean Milwaukee’s championship window will be open for that long.

This isn’t a young core. Holiday is 30, Khris Middleton is 29, and Brook Lopez is 32. Aside from Donte DiVincenzo, there’s no young talent in the pipeline. Even the fully realized version of DiVincenzo is more of a high-end role player than a star. Given all the draft capital they shelled out in the Holiday trade, it’ll be difficult to replenish that future talent base. Their trade avenues are limited for the same reason, and a new Holiday contract would push them into the luxury tax for years to come. In short, it’ll be a significant challenge to improve this roster over the length of Antetokounmpo’s contract. The win-now mandate very much still stands.

But for now, everyone in the organization can breathe a lot easier. After botching the Bogdan Bogdanovic sign-and-trade that Antetokounmpo reportedly pushed for, Milwaukee salvaged what could’ve been a franchise-destroying offseason. Antetokounmpo’s commitment should keep the team in the title mix for the foreseeable future. It also casts the costly Holiday acquisition in a more favorable light as he seems more likely to re-sign now, and those first-round picks the Bucks sent out in the deal will likely fall in the late 20s with their star sticking around.

The added benefit for Milwaukee is the somewhat belated timing of Antetokounmpo’s decision – i.e., after free agency – hamstrung two of their conference rivals for 2020-21. (See below)

All in all, it’s a landmark day for the franchise.

What it means for Toronto, Dallas, and Miami

For years, teams have been planning for what was supposed to be a free-agent bonanza in the 2021 offseason. But over the past 18 or so months, most of those high-profile, would-be free agents have signed extensions, from LeBron James and Paul George to Bradley Beal and CJ McCollum. It seems likely Kawhi Leonard will eventually re-up with the Clippers, too.

Antetokounmpo was among the last big fish swimming in that shrinking pond, and three teams, in particular, spent the previous few months telegraphing their intentions to try and reel him in. For the Raptors, Heat, and Mavericks, that dream is now dead. So, what did those teams sacrifice in their respective pursuits, and how can they pivot from here?

For all three teams, retaining 2021 flexibility meant closing the door on signings and trades that would’ve added long-term money to their books. In free agency, at least, the fallout wasn’t as bad as it could have been, thanks to a cap-strapped market that made it difficult for all but a handful of lottery teams to poach free agents. That allowed the Heat to hold onto Goran Dragic with a one-year balloon contract carrying a second-year team option and the Raptors to retain Fred VanVleet on a fair-market four-year deal. Had another team come over the top with a VanVleet offer, the risk/reward calculus for Toronto could’ve gotten brutally complicated.

That doesn’t mean the 2021-focused strategy didn’t hurt those organizations in the short term. The last two Eastern Conference champions lost crucial pieces of their rosters due to their unwillingness to offer anything beyond one-year deals. The Heat could’ve re-signed Jae Crowder for three years at the reasonable cost of the mid-level exception, but they let him walk instead. The Raptors’ first- and second-string centers turned down one-year offers to sign two-year deals in Los Angeles. For two teams that could be back in the Finals mix this season, taking a step back is a big deal.

The Mavericks’ cost was the lowest of any of the teams playing the cap-space-hoarding game this offseason. The only rotation player the strategy lost them was Delon Wright, a solid backup whose passivity and shaky jump-shooting banished him to the fringes come playoff time. Perhaps the reasoning behind trading Seth Curry for Josh Richardson (who has an $11-million player option for next season that he’ll likely decline) was to clear Curry’s $8-million salary off their books for 2021. Curry’s shooting was a big part of Dallas’ top-ranked offense last season, but Richardson is the type of perimeter defender and secondary ball-handler it desperately needed.

The Mavs also have the benefit of a longer-term window of contention than the Raptors and Heat. Punting free agency and failing to take a step forward this season won’t matter to them in the same way it does to teams powered by Kyle Lowry and Jimmy Butler, stars nearing the tail end of their primes.

Still, there was an opportunity cost for Dallas, as with Toronto and Miami, that went beyond losing its own players. Staying lean for the next offseason meant passing on potentially helpful players who could’ve signed team-friendly deals – think Christian Wood, De’Anthony Melton, and Dario Saric. Again, all of these clubs can talk themselves into being fringe title contenders this year, but they’re almost certainly worse off for 2020-21 than they would’ve been if their primary objective was to maximize their roster for the upcoming season.

For the Heat, you could argue the opportunity cost stretches back to last season when they backed out of a trade for Danilo Gallinari – a guy who might’ve made a difference for them in The Finals – because they couldn’t commit to extending him beyond 2021.

Of course, those were all justifiable decisions if the teams believed they had a chance to acquire a generational talent who would’ve made them instant title favorites. Sure, Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol were key components to Toronto’s 2019 championship and surprise 2019-20 campaign, but if the Raptors even had a 5% chance of signing Antetokounmpo, minimizing that possibility for the sake of keeping two aging big men for a couple more years would’ve been malpractice. Ditto for Miami extending Gallinari.

With Antetokounmpo off the table, all three of these teams should be able to pivot toward other profitable paths. They’re better positioned to do so now than they would’ve been had the Bucks star waited until next offseason to re-sign.

The Heat, for their part, already vaporized their 2021 space by giving Bam Adebayo a max extension, and they have the pieces to be a major player in this season’s trade market. Miami has already been linked to Bradley Beal and James Harden. Toronto can probably work its way into those trade talks if the front office is willing to put Pascal Siakam or OG Anunoby on the table as a starting point.

Even for an increasingly barren free-agent class, there’s value in retaining the flexibility to create max space, and Dallas and Toronto can still do some interesting stuff with theirs. Assuming Leonard re-signs in L.A., Rudy Gobert could become the jewel of next year’s free agency, and he’d be a fascinating fit on either team. If Gobert winds up extending with the Jazz or signing elsewhere, those teams can still spread their cap space around to multiple players or use it to absorb a contract in a trade without sending back matching salary. You never know when the next disgruntled star is going to become available.

Another option for the Raptors is to double down on their current group in the short term and kick their cap-space window down the road. Anunoby is extension-eligible, and locking him up now could save some money in the long term, given the breakout he seems poised for.

It should also be noted that signing a max free agent likely means moving on from Lowry. The Raptors would have to renounce his $43-million cap hold to open up space and could then only offer him the room exception (a maximum of two years and $10 million) to return. But with Lowry suddenly looking like the best player in next year’s free-agent class, it might behoove Toronto to keep him around, potentially on another one-year balloon deal, and assess its options from there.

By the way, if Lowry doesn’t wind up re-signing with the Raptors, he’d be a great place for the Mavericks to spend their cap space.

Obviously, nothing beats acquiring an MVP-caliber player in his prime without having to surrender anything in return. But there are paths to palatable consolation prizes for these teams, and they’re all headed up by smart front offices who have surely planned for this scenario. All is not lost.

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