FROM A DIMLY lit room greater than 6,000 miles away throughout the Atlantic Ocean, Giannis Antetokounmpo appeared on a projector display screen within the interview room at Fiserv Discussion board in Milwaukee.
It was Sept. 29, Bucks media day, the primary day a crew might formally collect earlier than the beginning of coaching camp for the 2025-26 season.
Most of his teammates shuffled out and in of the identical room to reply questions earlier than they headed to the courtroom to pose for brand spanking new pictures for the 12 months.
Antetokounmpo had come down with COVID the week earlier than and had not but been cleared to journey. It was after 8 p.m. in Greece and Antetokounmpo’s voice was raspy, nonetheless recovering, however he dialed in. He sat together with his proper fist resting on his temple to open the session.
Bucks tv analyst and host Lisa Byington requested how he was feeling. “Good,” he stated, smiling. “I look good on digital camera.”
The room laughed, a brief reprieve from what had been at occasions an uneasy, tense summer season for the franchise.
An hour earlier, in the identical interview room, Bucks governor Wes Edens justified the crew’s daring summer season transaction — stretching the remaining $113 million on Damian Lillard’s contract over the following 5 years to liberate sufficient cap area to signal free agent Myles Turner — by pointing to Antetokounmpo’s continued dedication to the franchise.
“I had a fantastic dialog with Giannis again in June out right here, and he made it clear that he was very dedicated to Milwaukee,” Edens stated. “He likes being right here, likes his household being right here. … Clearly, we have had some sort of dangerous fortune in these final couple of years within the playoffs, however there’s a variety of positives. If we had been actually going to benefit from our alternative with Giannis, we felt that we wanted to do one thing substantial, and that is what we did.”
4 seasons faraway from the 2021 NBA championship that Antetokounmpo helped ship to Milwaukee, solely he and Bobby Portis remained on the present roster.
Jrue Vacation, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez, the remainder of that championship core, are elsewhere. Lillard noticed his two-year tenure in Milwaukee reduce quick after he tore an Achilles within the first spherical of the playoffs final season and was waived, an unceremonious finish to what was imagined to be a long-term, dominant partnership. The Bucks misplaced within the first spherical of the playoffs each years he was there.
Antetokounmpo is now the one participant on the roster who has made an All-Star crew.
Again within the interview room, he was requested concerning the assembly with Edens. He paused.
“A gathering? Say that once more? I had a gathering with Wes?”
“I … I actually, I can not recall that assembly.”
The uncomfortable disconnect rapidly went viral.
The awkwardness of that media day misstep served as an inauspicious begin to the season.
Per week later, ESPN would report that the Bucks and Knicks had engaged in talks surrounding Antetokounmpo. These talks by no means progressed, sources advised ESPN, however Antetokounmpo had entertained the concept.
The Bucks have refused to think about a future by which Antetokounmpo is enjoying elsewhere. Antetokounmpo at all times had as nicely. However for the primary time, he not solely publicly admitted his curiosity in one other franchise however offered an on-the-record timeline for his determination.
“I’ve stated this many occasions: I wish to be in a scenario that I can win,” Antetokounmpo stated. “I’ve communicated with my teammates, communicated with the folks I respect and love, that the second I step on this courtroom or on this facility, I put on this jersey, the remainder doesn’t matter. I am locked into no matter I’ve in entrance of me. Now, if in six, seven months I alter my thoughts, I believe that is human, too.”
That door, as soon as locked and closed, had been opened.
“We simply bought to place our heads down, keep locked in all 12 months lengthy and attempt to win some video games,” Antetokounmpo stated. “Hopefully, get within the playoffs after which do not get eradicated within the first spherical. That is just about it. After which we go from there.”
Nonetheless, because the Bucks enter the season, they insist they’re on the identical web page as their star. “There is not any greater distinction,” one crew supply advised ESPN, “than the notion of the skin in comparison with what is going on on in-house.”
JON HORST INSISTS the Bucks have been on this place earlier than.
Since he grew to become the crew’s normal supervisor in 2017, Horst, who acquired a contract extension in April, has confronted questions on how he plans to maintain Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee. The extent of inquiry hit a crescendo this offseason.
When requested about it, Horst dispelled the premise.
“It is no completely different than every other offseason,” Horst stated at media day.
It is the identical message the Bucks despatched all through the summer season, waving their palms — there’s not a lot to see right here! — regardless of Antetokounmpo’s personal acknowledged wandering eye.
Precedent would possibly gasoline Horst’s confidence.
Every time Antetokounmpo’s future has been in query, the GM has doubled down extra of the crew’s future: first by buying Jrue Vacation in 2020, then by utilizing Vacation to commerce for Lillard in 2023, after which by waiving Lillard to create area to signal Turner this summer season.
In response, Antetokounmpo, who will flip 31 in December, signed extensions each summers.
The unprecedented waive-and-stretch for Lillard was extensively panned across the league, nevertheless it’s seen a lot in a different way internally. Group sources had been involved about whether or not Lillard, at 36, might return to the participant he was — and didn’t wish to waste a 12 months of rivalry in a convention decimated by accidents.
Maybe extra importantly, they knew they may not waste one other 12 months with Antetokounmpo. “The most important false impression is that this was a panic transfer,” a crew supply advised ESPN. “It wasn’t. It was a basketball determination. Dame on the opposite finish of it, you are unsure what that was going to seem like. In the meantime, Myles is an ideal match. We wish to win right here.”
However it may be tougher to take action now, with this roster, than at any time in Antetokounmpo’s prime.
He’ll be with out an All-Star guard or wing for the primary time since 2015-16, maybe not coincidentally the final time the Bucks missed the playoffs. They entered the season with the eighth-best odds to win the Japanese Convention, in line with ESPN BET, behind the 76ers and Celtics regardless of the damage uncertainty surrounding Joel Embiid and Paul George in Philadelphia and Jayson Tatum in Boston.
The burden on Antetokounmpo has by no means been greater. Regardless of enjoying simply 27 minutes in Milwaukee’s 133-120 victory over the Washington Wizards on opening night time, Antetokounmpo scored 37 factors, grabbed 14 rebounds and dished out 5 assists. However his utilization price, the share of Bucks performs that ended with an Antetokounmpo shot try, free throw or turnover — was almost 49%.
For comparability, Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball led the league in utilization final season at 35.9% (Antetokounmpo was second at 35.2%).
And the Bucks additionally misplaced their place to begin guard, Kevin Porter Jr., to an ankle damage in Wednesday’s opener that coach Doc Rivers acknowledged “did not look good.”
YET AS ANTETOKOUMPO additionally brazenly considers his legacy inside the sport, Milwaukee is approaching one other reckoning level: the summer season of 2026.
Antetokounmpo has two extra years remaining on his contract after this one, however the ultimate season is a participant possibility. He’ll grow to be eligible subsequent summer season to signal an extension. It is this window that would dictate what his future holds.
“All the time bought to carry possession’s toes to the hearth,” a supply near Antetokounmpo advised ESPN.
Antetokounmpo has proceeded to stroll the best of strains as soon as once more. He acknowledged his present dedication to the franchise but additionally publicly gave himself the chance to vary his thoughts by spring.
“Finally, I’ll decide,” he stated. “And my determination right this moment is that I am right here and I am dedicated to this crew.”
Such a declaration provides appreciable strain to the 2025-26 Bucks, a crew with unproven co-stars who’ve to provide him a purpose to remain or at the least win sufficient early to quiet a few of the hypothesis that would encompass this squad all season.
Horst, for his half, could make strikes to enhance the roster. The Bucks aren’t in both apron or within the luxurious tax, and so they have their 2031 and 2032 first-round picks to supply in a commerce.
Whether or not Horst performs these playing cards, restricted although they may be, stays to be seen.
“This crew is constructed to maximise Giannis, however Giannis can truly maximize this crew,” Horst stated. “We perceive nothing’s been given to us. It is a crew that’s actually hungry to earn no matter we get, and so they wish to need to win. That is going to be our model of play, enjoying collectively, and that is going to function the most effective participant on the planet, Giannis, and a bunch of fellows that match him actually, rather well.”
ANTETOKOUNMPO STOOD NEAR middle courtroom, his mouth open and head nodding in approval.
It was his first stint of his first preseason sport of the season, on the highway Oct. 12 towards the Chicago Bulls, and the Bucks’ offense was rolling.
Milwaukee had knocked down three straight 3-pointers — a pair from Gary Trent and one other from Turner — to show a 7-7 tie right into a 16-7 Milwaukee benefit in lower than a minute, forcing Bulls coach Billy Donovan to burn a timeout with 7:49 remaining within the first quarter.
The Bucks went on to shoot 48 3-pointers within the sport, taking extra photographs from past the arc than inside it. They made 20 of them of their 127-121 win.
Cynics would possibly see meaningless stats from a random preseason sport. Others would possibly see proof of idea.
“It is a perform of what we are able to do,” Rivers stated after the sport. “Final 12 months, though we led the league in proportion, we simply could not create sufficient. Now we really feel like we are able to create extra.”
Certainly, the Bucks had been the most effective 3-point capturing crew within the league final 12 months, flattening 38.7% of their photographs from deep, however they ranked 18th in makes an attempt (36.6).
In 4 preseason video games, Milwaukee generated a median of 42.6 3-point makes an attempt per sport, which elevated to 46.5 within the two exhibition video games by which Antetokounmpo performed.
By leaning extra on Antetokounmpo as a playmaker and surrounding him with 3-point capturing, the Bucks imagine they’ve discovered a system they’ll win with.
Their beginning lineup alongside Antetokounmpo might be Turner within the frontcourt together with Trent, Porter and AJ Inexperienced, who’s recent off a brand new four-year, $45 million contract extension.
The Bucks experimented with this five-out offense, permitting Antetokounmpo to be the lead initiator and surrounded by area and capturing, down the stretch final season following Lillard’s deep vein thrombosis prognosis on March 20, which ended his common season.
Throughout that 16-game span, Antetokounmpo recorded 5 triple-doubles, second within the NBA throughout that span behind Nikola Jokic (8), in line with ESPN Analysis.
It is a model Antetokounmpo retains calling “harmful” and one the Bucks hope serves as a template for fulfillment this season, and doubtlessly past, as they attempt to navigate an unknown future with their celebrity and his roster.
“We’re not the favorites, however we will be an issue,” Antetokounmpo stated. “The crew is ready up in a means that may be very, very harmful. Now we have a variety of capturing. Now we have a variety of playmakers and ball handlers. Now we have a variety of defenders. We will change. Now we have an unbelievable large that may area the ground and be an issue defensively. We’re arrange precisely how you have to set as much as make a press release.”
The Bucks gained their season opener. That, in line with Antetokounmpo, was their first purpose.
Subsequent? “Keep wholesome,” he stated. “And after that get to the playoffs. Be within the playoffs and attempt to win a playoff sequence.”