The Bucks want to make Giannis Antetokounmpo happy at every turn and minimize the number of rounds.
The coronavirus presented a hard left in the plane.
Antetokounmpo will be entitled to a super-max extension this season. Milwaukee – the best in the East and in the maximum series of championship contests with Clippers and Lakers – seems to have peaked at the right time to impress him. Already under contract until 2020-21, Antetokounmpo would have been locked up in at least four additional seasons with a super-max extension.
But now everything seems more tenuous.
The coronavirus has forced the NBA to pause its season for a long time. That layoff calls for variability, which hampers a favorite like the Bucks. Milwaukee guards Eric Bledsoe and Pat Connaughton also tested positive for coronavirus.
Regardless of how this season ends, Antetokounmpo also has multiple financial reasons to consider circumventing a super-max extension.
He is so young and so good – headed for MVP back to back at the age of 25 – Apparently Antetokounmpo can apparently impose a maximum salary every year he wants for the foreseeable future. He has remained fairly healthy throughout his career. But even if he suffered a greater injury, the teams would line up anyway to offer him the maximum. It has pushed its worth so high.
Which gives him rare leverage – the type inflected by LeBron James and Kevin Durant when they signed 1 + 1 contracts in recent years. The time may be particularly right for Antetokounmpo to follow that model.
Antetokounmpo’s super-max extension would have been worth $ 254 million in five years. But that compensation is based on revenue across the league in 2021-22, which will likely not live up to expectations.
Players collectively receive about half of the basketball income each season. This replaces the wages declared in the contracts. The entire salary system is designed for salaries declared to add up to about half of basketball-related income. But the prevailing determinant is the league-level revenue.
Who knows where the pay limit of 2021-22 will end? There are so many questions about revenue in the coming years.
If the revenue is falling, the league has two main options:
1. Set the artificially high wage level. This would keep the wages declared by the players (maximum hits) on the track and create a gradual transition every time the earnings normalize. In the meantime, the owners would keep whatever percentage of the players’ salaries are needed to reach that 50-50 division across the league.
2. Set the salary limit in line with the expected earnings. Players would be paid roughly in the status of their contracts. But this amount would be lower for new offers.
Both possibilities – although the latter more than the first – could dissuade Antetokounmpo from signing in the long run.
It increases in a multi-year contract or the extension extends the wages of the first year to 8%. Hence, it is important to sign up when the first year’s salary is relatively high. If the salary limit skyrockets in future seasons, a player with a long-term contract may get stuck on salaries below the new high.
Even if the league keeps the wage limit artificially high, it will probably be a conservative figure. The limit is expected to rise to $ 115 million in 2020-21 and $ 125 million in 2021-22. Now, the talk of artificially supporting the salary limit is about maintaining the current level ($ 109.14 million).
So, starting with the free 2021 agency, Antetokounmpo could sign a 1 + 1 for the maximum every year until the limit goes high enough to sign in the long run.
Of course, it would be very risky for dollars. They want Antetokounmpo to be blocked in the long run as soon as possible, not deciding year by year if it wants to stay.
All but two MVPs in NBA history have won a series of playoffs in their first five seasons. Kevin Garnett advanced for the first time in the post season in his ninth season, and Antetokounmpo took until season six. This is an accusation in Milwaukee more than in Antetokounmpo.
After failing to build a young core with Antetokounmpo, the Bucks made up for lost time with quality veterans. The plan worked. Milwaukee is excellent. But here are the eras of the other four beginners in 2021-22, when the next Antetokounmpo chord began:
Refueling will be difficult with consistent draft choices in the late 1920s and no space for the cork.
Does Antetokounmpo want to tie its long-term future to this group? It’s fantastic at the moment, it’s destined to decline on the next Antetokounmpo deal.
If Antetokounmpo doesn’t sign the super-max extension in this offseason, it puts the Bucks in trouble. They could still compete for a championship in 2020-21 and offer him the super max in 2021 free agency. But it would open the door for Antetokounmpo leaving for no return. Milwaukee should at least think about trading in Antetokounmpo before that point.
Antetokounmpo cycling through 1 + 1 contracts with the Bucks would leave them in that stressful situation ad continuum.
There isn’t even much room for a compromise solution. Unless the 2021-22 salary limit stops below $ 94,382,016, Antetokounmpo can maximize his salary through an extension of this off-season only if he locks up for another four or five years. A shorter extension would require too large a reduction in annual earnings.
It is also possible that Antetokounmpo, like LeBron James in his second stint with the Cavaliers, believes that the burden on his original team is being lifted with a championship. A title could authorize Antetokounmpo a start. But at least Milwaukee would have gotten a title in that scenario.
There are so many potential landmines for the Bucks.
All they can reasonably do is try to win as much as possible and hope that the wage limit reaches favorable numbers.
