Heads were turned earlier this week when a report came out that made it seem like Giannis Antetokounmpo was drawing a line in the sand for the Milwaukee Bucks. While Antetokounmpo has been clear that he does not want to discuss his long-term future, a case study on the Bucks published by a pair of Harvard professors included a quote from the reigning NBA MVP that put his future front and center.
According to the case study, Antetokounmpo was quoted as saying, “I want the Bucks to build a winning culture. So far, we have been doing great, and, if this lasts, there’s no other place I want to be. But if we’re underperforming in the NBA next year, deciding whether to sign becomes a lot more difficult.” It was decidedly un-Giannis for him to lay things out that clearly, and on Thursday, he offered a direct response that illustrated he wasn’t happy with how this went down.
“My girlfriend, Mariah, asked me yesterday, ‘Did you actually say this?’” Antetokounmpo said, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I said, ‘If you kind of read the last quote, I’ve never used those words in my life.’ But I’m not going to talk about this, I’m just going to focus on this season and I’ve said in the past, it’s disrespectful, man. We’re facing the Houston Rockets, a championship-level team tonight.”
Antetokounmpo made it clear that he’s not going to spend time discussing these sorts of stories, which he knows will pop up during the year, because he views them as a distraction and that he wants the attention “to be on this team and what we’ve got to do to win.”
“As I said, the last — what is is called quote, paragraph — it’s words that I didn’t use,” Antetokounmpo said. “Underperforming or whether or deciding, all those words I’ve never used in my life. As I said, I’m not going to talk about it. There are going to be stories that come out – I said that, I said this – but I’m not going to get into it at all.”
It did seem extremely unlike Antetokounmpo to put his thoughts on free agency out into the open like that, but in a way, it is far more odd that two Harvard professors would just make up a quote in a case study. We’ll wait and see what ends up happening with this, but it is probably safe to assume that Antetokounmpo will do whatever it takes to make sure his future in Milwaukee doesn’t make headlines for as long as he suits up for the franchise.
