Giannis Antetokounmpo Denies Quote About Leaving Milwaukee Bucks

MILWAUKEE, WI — It's the news NBA fans in every city except Milwaukee wants to hear: if Giannis Antetokounmpo's team, the Milwaukee Bucks, doesn't live up to expectations, it could make it a lot harder for him to re-sign with them.

Except that Antetokounmpo disputes ever making that claim.

Last spring, Antetokounmpo agreed to do an in-depth interview Anita Elberse, a Harvard Business School professor of business administration for a case study about how the Bucks went from one of the worst teams in the NBA to one of the best.

The case study, 13 pages in length, has not been released to the public, however parts of it were shared with local media - who had a field day.

"I want the Bucks to build a winning culture," Elberse quoted Antetokounmpo as saying in the report. "So far, we have been doing great, and, if this lasts, there's no other place I want to be. But if we're under-performing in the NBA next year, deciding whether to sign becomes a lot more difficult."

At issue for the Bucks is keeping their all-star forward. The team is expected to offer Antetokounmpo a five-year maximum contract extension worth $253 million in the summer of 2020.

If Antetokounmpo declines the contract, he's eligible to become a free agent in 2021. That means bye-bye to the Bucks and hello to a new team.

Antetokounmpo has since strongly denied those comments, and claims he never said them.

"As I said, the last — what is it called quote, paragraph — it’s words that I didn’t use," he said in a Journal Sentinel story following the initial report. "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."

Antetokounmpo, who turns just 25 years old this December, has already piled up the accolades for the Milwaukee Bucks. He's a three-time NBA All Star, was the league's most-improved player for the 2016-17 season and won the NBA Most Valuable Player award for his work inthe 2018-19 season. He averaged 27.7 points per game, pulled in 12.5 rebounds per game and dished out 5.9 assists per game last year.

According to the report, Bucks co-owner Jamie Dinan suspects the Harvard professor is telling the truth - sort of. In the report, Dinan suspects Milwaukee's star player may have been goaded into saying an off-handed comment in order to generate some conflict.

Counter-balancing that quote is Antetokounmpo's penchant for reaffirming his loyalty to Milwaukee:

"My goal is going to stay the same: It's get better, take it day by day, step by step, and the ultimate goal is to win a championship. As long as that we are all on the same page and we are all focused on that goal, why not play for the Bucks 20 years, why not play 25 years,: he said in an ESPN reportthis summer. "Why not, after playing, be a member of the coaching staff or a member of the front office? But we got to have the same goal. We got to have the same principles. … We got to focus on winning a championship."