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Where Does Antetokounmpo Go and What Can the Bucks Do To Keep Him?

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MVP superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo has a career defining decision to make after the Milwaukee Bucks’ disappointing five-game second-round loss to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Semifinals six days ago.

As much as the Bucks would love to control the situation, Giannis has the power to control his destiny like Anthony Davis did last offseason when he forced the New Orleans Pelicans to trade him to the Los Angeles Lakers. Does Giannis stay in Milwaukee and trust the Bucks to acquire another superstar to make the team a legitimate championship contender or exert the power of his looming free agency like AD and chose his future home?

Here’s a quick look at the four options Giannis Antetokounmpo has:

1. Giannis Signs Supermax Contract with the Bucks.

There are good reasons why Giannis might actually prefer this as his best option. To start with, we’re in the middle of a pandemic that’s devastated the economy and transformed the future of the NBA from rosy to uncertain. There’s a case to be made the smart move would be for Giannis to take advantage of the mega dollars on the table and lock in generational wealth and security for his family. After all, who knows what the future holds?

Then there’s Giannis’ team first personality and professed love for the city of Milwaukee. It’s easy to imagine him deciding to sign the supermax contract offered by the Bucks and trusting them to do what they need to improve.

2. Giannis Declines to Sign Supermax with the Bucks.

This is probably the easiest and most likely option for Giannis to choose, basically remaining committed to the Milwaukee Bucks but smartly kicking any signing of the supermax contract down the road until next offseason. This option keeps Antetokounmpo’s options open while putting intense pressure on the Bucks to make substantive changes to upgrade the roster for next season, which could be a challenge considering their situation.

While the most reasonable path for Giannis right now, this option would ratchet up the pressure on the Bucks to make major moves to upgrade the team and transform them into a legitimate championship contender.

3. The Bucks Trade Giannis to Team of Their Choice.

One thing the Bucks cannot afford to do is lose Giannis Antetokounmpo to free agency with nothing in return so if he declines to sign a supermax contract, Milwaukee might be wise to quietly investigate the trade market. The offers the Bucks could receive for Giannis now with a year left on his contract would certainly be better than any possible sign-and-trade deal he’d have to approve a year from now or the risk of losing him for nothing.

While the Bucks don’t want to part ways with Antetokounmpo, they may have no choice because their current roster and financial constraints may make it impossible for them to upgrade the team. May be time to cash in.

4. Giannis Demands Trade to Team(s) of His Choice

What the Bucks don’t want to happen is for Giannis to decide to follow the route Anthony Davis took and demand to be traded to a specific team or list of teams because that could diminish what Milwaukee receives in return. Just the threat of Antetokounmpo doing this could be enough to make the Bucks seek to trade him this offseason, especially if getting him to sign the supermax deal seems like long shot and options to upgrade the roster dim.

This is the option the Los Angeles Lakers are hoping will become the path for Giannis joining LeBron and AD to form a new superteam dynasty whose championship window would extend well beyond James’ retirement.

Milwaukee and Antetokounmpo have started the process by meeting to discuss the future and how to improve the team. The showdown will come when the Bucks formally present Giannis with the actual supermax offer. Should Giannis lose faith in Milwaukee’s ability to upgrade the team and decline to sign, the Bucks probably can’t afford to take the risk of waiting until the following offseason and would be smart to look to trade him now.

The problem with the Lakers planned pursuit of Giannis is the only way they could acquire him would be through free agency a year from now as they don’t have the trading chips to even make a viable sign-and-trade deal. Joining the Lakers could only happen if Giannis committed to signing with the Lakers as a free agent next year and declared he wouldn’t re-sign with any team to whom he was traded, which is an unlikely long shot at best.

Frankly, Giannis signing the supermax deal with the Bucks would be good news for the Lakers in my opinion. I prefer seeing him stay in Milwaukee than creating a superteam somewhere else to compete with the Lakers. Further, I also dislike the idea of the Lakers wasting the coming offseason saving cap space to sign Giannis in free agency a year from now. Smacks too much of the lost opportunities of waiting for Kawhi Leonard last offseason.

I also don’t see Giannis as the kind of player who would want to follow the Kevin Durant’s lead and join a team like the Miami Heat who just beat him. He strikes me as the kind of loyal player who wants to stay in Milwaukee.

Vogel expects to use McGee and Howard more in Western finals

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“‘Joker’ is one of the most unique players in the world, and one of the most unique players ever to play the center position in this league,” Vogel said Wednesday. “He can basically hurt you in all ways. He can hurt you at the 3-point line, in the pocket, playing the 4-on-3 game in the post, and obviously with his passing. …

“It does make this series a little different — a lot different, actually — in terms of how much we’ll use our centers. I don’t want to get too much into detail, but obviously we’re going to be the L.A. Lakers, who we’ve been all year. We adjusted to a small-ball team last series, but I would expect us to return to form.”

Lakers-Nuggets preview: X-factor, key matchup, prediction and more

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Biggest Lakers question: How much Davis at center?

In the four regular-season games between these teams, Anthony Davis played 150 total minutes. Here’s the quick breakdown of the Lakers’ success within them.

Davis on the court with JaVale McGee: 52 minutes, Nuggets outscored the Lakers by 18

Davis on the court with Dwight Howard: 42 minutes, net zero

Davis on the court with neither: 56 minutes, Lakers outscored the Nuggets by 34

That’s admittedly a small sample, but it still feels pretty telling. The Lakers were 52 points better with Davis at center, as compared to the two-big lineups. Which should come as no surprise. In his career, against better competition, Davis’ teams have traditionally performed better when he slides to center.

5 Things: Western Conference finals

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Probably not a lot of folks predicted this as the match up to decide which two teams would vie to represent the western conference in the NBA finals. But here we are: Nuggets vs. Lakers. Not since Carmelo Anthony was suiting up for the Mile-High Denver squad has a Nuggets team progressed this far through the NBA playoffs. Not since Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol were starring for the Lakers have we played in a conference finals and not since we took the season all the way to game 7 against Boston have we brought home the cookie. Good stuff.

  1. Denver doesn’t want to stop playing basketball. They’ve been counted out in 2 series, 6 elimination games and they’re still breathing. Not only do the Denver Nuggets not want to stop playing hoops but the rest of planet Earth should stop counting the Nuggets out. That starts here. While I am tempted to revise my prediction for how this series will go (Lakers in 6) I think there are enough factors that tilt the series in our favor for me to still be comfortable with that call. Mainly it still comes down to our defense. I think we can force the Nuggets not named Jokic and Murray to beat us. I like those odds but I also have a healthy dose of respect for the work Mike Malone does and the talent of the Denver superstar duo.
  2. Lakers rust game. Mark it down now: we’re losing on Friday. We haven’t fared well at all in the opening game of any of our playoff series. While Denver will have come off a momentum-building, franchise-defining, NBA history-making back to back 7 game series in which they were down 3-1 in both the Lakers will have been off for nearly a week. We’re going to be out of rhythm, our rotations won’t be sharp, our jumpers will be off, in short…we’ll be rusty. While I’d love to be wrong on this one it might also, in an odd way, help us if we let Denver get over-confident. I’m kidding, it would be better to win game 1 and set a tone. But I’m calling losses in game 1 and game 3 before we figure the Nuggets out for good and put them away in 6.
  3. Stopping the Nuggets. The Nuggets and Lakers match up well. They both feature an elite scorer and play maker (Jamal Murray and LeBron James) and a talented big man who can do it all (Anthony Davis and Nikola Jokic. The difference comes on the other end. James and Davis are also top notch defenders, Jokic and Murray are not. We need to make them work on defense. The Clippers with the minutes restriction and conditioning issues that affected Montrezl Harrell and the fact that Zubac just isn’t played enough (same issue he faced on the Lakers: talented big man just not talented enough, evidently…) never wore Jokic down and, despite having two elite defenders in Leonard and George, couldn’t corral Murray. The key to stopping Denver is to take the ball out of both Murray and Jokic’s hands. Force them into uncomfortable spots on the floor and you live with them scoring points but on lots more shots. Make the rest of the team beat you.
  4. Lakers starting five. You know it’s coming. 6,362 articles from LakerTom proclaiming that Markieff Morris should start, McGee and Howard should be benched and so on and so forth. Amazingly, I disagree. I think you need to punish Denver inside, beat Jokic down by making him bang with a big and save AD for the 5 in crunch time. Force Nikola to defend Howard and McGee in the post, maybe pick up some fouls on him and get him tired for the 4th. So you read it here first (and on this site probably only, lol) but we’ll see a lot more of Howard and McGee until we move on or that proves to be ineffective.
  5. The unheralded star of this series will be… Danny Green. I know, I can hear you groaning from here on the West side of LA. Skeptics of this aren’t off-base in any way shape or form: to put it simply Danny Green has disappointed as a Laker in regards to his contract, his on-court production and mostly his ability to hit the corner three reliably. But this series is primed for a third star to shine and Danny showed a lot of signs of life against the Rockets. He might have a rough game 1. But I’m going with Danny Green as my “Not LeBron or AD” Laker to rise to the occasion.

All in all, the prediction game is fun and all but let’s face it: we’re, at best, arm chair GMS, coaches and players. The pros are pros for a reason and this series is going to be a great test of the Laker team and coaches. Mike Malone isn’t a one-trick pony like Mike D’Antoni. Jamal Murry isn’t the prolific scorer James Harden is or the force of nature that is Russell Westbrook or the ridiculously clutch performer that is Damien Lillard but he’s got a little of all three of those dudes in his game and he plays without fear. Jokic is the best true center in the game today (I consider Anthony Davis a power forward because that’s what he considers himself to be and who am I to argue?) The Laker defense hasn’t had to contain a player with Jokic’s size, shooting and skill, yet.

Also, it was so nice to see that the Clippers choked. I am of the opinion that there are no ordained match ups, that one team or another doesn’t present more or less of a challenge just a different one. The team that wins a playoff series is the better team. So the Lakers are getting the other best team in the western conference, no matter what the pundits predicted, the fans wanted or the bookies predicted. This series could go Denver’s way if the Lakers aren’t focused and ready to compete at the highest level. Honestly, I’m kinda glad we didn’t get the “not battle for Los Angeles” that the Clippers/Lakers would have presented in the Bubble. Let’s save that one for next season when we’re back in arenas, there are fans in the seats and we;re the #1 seed and the Clippers are #8.

Go Lakers.