If the Milwaukee Bucks want to ensure Giannis Antetokounmpo stays beyond the terms of his current contract, the team will have to live up to its lofty expectations.
"I want the Bucks to build a winning culture," Antetokounmpo told Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse this past spring, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Rick Romell. "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."
Antetokounmpo's current contract is set to expire after the 2020-21 season. He will be eligible to sign a massive extension next summer.
Elberse and her co-author, master's student Melcolm Ruffin, interviewed players, team owners, and executives from the Bucks organization for a business case study about star players on small-market NBA teams.
It's unclear if Antetokounmpo's position has changed in the intervening months, particularly in light of the team advancing to the Eastern Conference finals and the 24-year-old capturing his first league MVP award. The Greek national has been tight-lipped about his future contract negotiations when the topic has been broached by traditional sports media in the lead-up to the 2019-20 campaign.
"I'm not gonna talk about it a lot this season, and I'm not going to try to address it," he said in September, according to ESPN's Eric Woodyard.
