By Ben Cohen Close Ben Cohen Dec. 15, 2020 2:30 pm ET The biggest question hanging over this NBA season now has an unexpected answer: Giannis is staying.
His decision to stay with Milwaukee—coming less than a week before the deadline, when the season begins next Tuesday—represents a financial windfall for Antetokounmpo and a major triumph for the Bucks. It’s a disappointment for the teams that were planning to pursue him in free agency next summer, but it’s also a sigh of relief for the NBA, a league that had become accustomed to big talents leaving smaller markets behind.
His future in Milwaukee looked increasingly bleak as the season approached and Antetokounmpo still hadn’t signed his so-called supermax deal. When he turned 26 years old last week—that he’s only 26 is one of the more remarkable things about Antetokounmpo—his teammates gave him what they hoped would be a useful birthday gift: pens to sign a contract.
A poor kid who sold goods on the streets of Athens, Antetokounmpo came late to basketball and still played for a team in Greece’s second division when the Bucks selected him with the No. 15 pick in the 2013 draft. He slowly blossomed into the most unexpected MVP the league has ever seen. And that meant there was enormous pressure for the Bucks to keep him.
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