Is Giannis Really Different?
The story of the modern NBA is that of superstar movement. This current era kicked off a decade ago, when, in July of 2020, LeBron James went on national TV and said seven words that would linger in sports infamy: “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.” He would be leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that had drafted him and his his hometown team, to join fellow superstars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh to form a superteam with the Miami Heat.
Over the years that followed, one NBA superstar after another would follow James’ example. Chris Paul would leave the New Orleans Hornets for the Los Angeles Clippers. Kevin Durant would abandon the Oklahoma City Thunder to form another superteam with the Golden State Warriors. Kawhi Leonard would force his way off the San Antonio Spurs to win a championship with the Toronto Raptors, only to immediately sign a new, short term, deal with the Los Angeles Clippers that could see him leave once again if the moves of the Clippers are not to his liking. And of course, LeBron himself would change teams twice more, first returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers and then finally coming to the West Coast and the Los Angeles Lakers, winning a championship in both destinations.
It has become a regular ritual in NBA pundit circles to inevitably look ahead to when the next superstar will become a free agent and immediately speculate not just as to whether or not they will leave their current team, but where will they go, as if the question of if they will leave is already settled. Such is the case with Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, set to hit unrestricted free agency after the 2020–21 NBA season.
Giannis, as he is commonly known, is perhaps the brightest young star in the NBA right now. Dominating opponents on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, he has won the last two NBA MVP awards, and was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the 2019–20 season as well. His Bucks have led the NBA in regular season wins for the past two seasons. However, they have not matched that level of success in either of the last two postseasons. In 2018–19 they fell to the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference finals, after winning the first two games in the series, and in the 2020 Orlando playoff bubble they were upset by the Miami Heat in the second round.
These playoff disappointments have only fueled the already rampant speculation that Giannis will leave Milwaukee for greener pastures. Will he go to the Raptors? Perhaps he will emulate Durant and join the team that beat him, in this case the Miami Heat? Or will he follow in Durant’s footsteps in a different way, by joining with Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors? Lost in all of this discussion is the idea that he might stay with Milwaukee.
The NBA superstar who spends his entire career with one team has become few and far between in the modern league. Tim Duncan proved to be a notable exception, staying for nearly twenty years with the San Antonio Spurs, and even he came very close to leaving. Steph Curry looks set to play the vast majority of his career with Golden State, if not spending his whole career there.
The difference is that San Antonio and Golden State established themselves as championship winners in order for their superstars to make their permanent homes with those franchises. Milwaukee has failed to do so with Giannis. However, all indications are that, if they are able to win, he might well indeed stay. In a recent survey of NBA player agents on questions around the league, eighteen of of nineteen surveyed believed that he would stay in Milwaukee, with quotes on the subject including “he’s going to give Milwaukee every opportunity to build talent around him,” and “I don’t think he’s a person that leaves.”
Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst has only ever spoken with confidence about how the environment their team has built makes him believe that Giannis will stay. However, moves will certainly need to be made in order to build the ideal amount of talent around Giannis so that he is able to win that elusive NBA championship, or at least make the NBA finals. One of the most often-discussed potential moves is a trade for Chris Paul, although navigating such a transaction may prove difficult for Horst to pull off and it has been deemed ‘unlikely’ by some.
The moves required in order to take the Bucks from high-achieving also-ran to champion may need to be more creative than the obvious one of bringing in Paul, but one thing is for certain- moves do need to happen. Eric Bledsoe’s failures in the postseason are well documented by now, and while Khris Middleton has proved a strong second fiddle to Giannis on the Bucks, his support has not proved sufficient to date. Some creativity in roster construction will be needed from Horst, and Budenholzer, as strong of a coach as he is, will need to evolve to overcome his own shortcomings.
The Bucks are not the pre-2010 Cleveland Cavaliers, who only ever got Lebron James a supporting cast consisting of the likes of Delonte West and a well past his prime Shaquille O’Neal. It is a testament to LeBron’s status as one of the two greatest players of all time that he brought those teams deep into the playoffs multiple times. But ultimately, despite his love for Cleveland, LeBron may have always wanted to see what life would have been like away from Ohio. Giannis does not seem to be wired the same way- his preference would be to build something in Milwaukee. However, that still puts a great deal of pressure on the franchise to build something of championship caliber around him, lest he feel he has no choice but to go elsewhere in order to reach the pinnacle of the sport.
