Woj: The potential of Giannis becoming a free agent would create a ‘frenzy’ | NBA Today

That obsession that Giannis Satentakumpo has with winning, it is on our minds today because it's official. The Milwaukee Bucks star, he is eligible to sign an extension at three years, worth up to roughly $169 million. Now remember, it's his first chance to recommit to the franchise since he signed a Supermax extension heading into the 2020-2021 season. However, the expectation is that Giannis is not going to sign that three-year extension right now, and here's a big reason why. It's not to panic yet. It's that if he waits, he can actually guarantee himself significantly more money signing a four-year extension worth roughly $234 million next summer instead. But as the countdown to potential extensions ends and another one starts, and that's the clock that's ticking toward the two-time MVP potentially, potentially being able to hit free agency. So back here with Adrian Wojnarowski, Zach Lowe, Richard Jefferson. Woj, how are those around the league viewing these talks right now between Giannis Satentakumpo and the Milwaukee Bucks? Yeah, listen, the possibility of a player like Giannis Satentakumpo becoming available, it creates a frenzy around the league behind closed doors. Certainly the chance that, and he certainly signaled it, but I think the chance that he could be available next year, that he could ask out. Certainly people are reading a lot into his comments, but listen, there are seven or eight players in this league that at all times you are on notice as an organization. One bad season, one injury, one bad trade, and all of a sudden you face the possibility of this player wanting to be somewhere else. So I don't think an organization in this league has done a better job over the last several years than John Horst, their general manager, has done putting the pieces around Giannis Satentakumpo, the right fits around him. Here's the question if you're Giannis and you're looking forward. Drew Holliday, 33 years old. Chris Middleton coming off injuries, 32. Brooke Lopez, 35 years old. How do you, with Giannis at 28, still in his prime and still MVP caliber years left, how do you reshape this roster long term? Golden State, they had two years where, a year where they were in the lottery, they got high picks, it allowed them to get assets and reshape that roster. Would Giannis have the patience to do that at 30 years old, 31? Those are the challenges for the Bucs right now. It all comes down to winning for Giannis and we know that John Horst and Milwaukee Bucs, that's on their mind certainly as well. But Richard, this is exactly what Giannis said, right? He said, quote, I'm a Milwaukee Buck, but most importantly, I'm a winner. So if there is a better situation for me to win than Larry O'Brien, I have to take that better situation. That is what he said. And so we're gonna talk about the situation he has now in Milwaukee. How do you assess the roster that they have right now? Okay, let me be very, very clear. The window for Milwaukee is small for all the reason that Wode just said. The guys are getting older, guys are a little bit more banged up, and so we're gonna go to the board and check this out. All right, here we go. So we're gonna talk about Milwaukee here for a second and obviously they are one of the best teams in the league. And this is the last five years like Wode just said. They finished first, third, third, first, first. So if it's about winning, it doesn't look like there's a better place to be in Milwaukee. And the year that they finished third, they won a championship. So for Giannis to say, hey, listen, I wanna win. Is it that you wanna win? Because ultimately, your guys just need to perform in the postseason. That's been the knock on Milwaukee, that's been a knock on Giannis until they won that championship. So if they don't perform in the postseason, all of this is wasted. But I will say this, where, and I'll ask you Zach, is there a place in the league that he can go that would look like this at minute he showed up there? Yeah, because Giannis Attentacupo, he can almost single-handedly get you to this kind of winning percentage with any kind of supporting cast. So the answer, unfortunately for Bucs fans is, yes, of course that's plausible. Yeah, okay, now let's bring up the lineup. And this is gonna be the hardest part that I really wanna show you. Look, their starting lineup, solid. Almost defensive player of the year up there. All-star quality. Then you have all of the guys. Look at the talent that you have on this roster. It's a complete roster. I know the Miami Heat fans gave me a lot of stress because I said that they had the best roster going into the postseason, then they got knocked out. But they have bench, they have depth, so they have everything. And this is going to be the last thing I say about this. People are gonna be upset. LeBron showed the formula. Now hear me out. He left Cleveland because their assets were older, they had nothing. He goes to Miami. You got a young D. Wade, you got a young Chris Bosh. Then what do you do? You go to Cleveland. You got a young Kevin Love, you got a young Kyrie Irving. Then what does he do? He goes to LA and he's got a young Anthony Davis. That's how that man won the championship. He is pairing himself with young stars. I don't see any young stars on this roster. I don't even see anybody that's even close to the remote level. So if in a year or two, he's like, I'm gonna go, I've won a championship here, mission accomplished. I'm gonna go someplace else. New York, Miami, LA, wherever he's gonna go. But that was the formula that Bron used. He paired up with young superstars. They need to get themselves a young superstar in here immediately to make him happy. How? You can't just magic up a young superstar. That's not my job. Are we walking back now? Okay, we're walking back. What you just described is just what happens in the NBA. When you get a prime age superstar, your whole LeBron journey that you just outlined, teams get old because they trade the future for the present. And so this is sort of the inevitable cycle of what it means to build a championship team. It's not the Bucs' fault. They traded a bunch of picks. It's hard to get good young players. It's hard to get good young players when you draft at the bottom. This is just reality. And that team is still pretty damn good. And I think what this really comes down to is, can you get off my chair? What this really comes down to is, Giannis and probably everyone in that organization was disturbed by how they went out last postseason. You mentioned it, Zach. The fact that you've had to gas a lot of picks and assets to cobble together this roster, and you don't have a lot of flexibility. You're not gonna be able to be win now mode, win now mode. We're gonna do what it takes to get Drew Holiday. We're gonna give up picks to get Jay Crowder as we're trying to win. And then think you have all these picks left, not just to draft and develop young players, but to use them in trades. You can't do everything. But, and that's the tough spot the Bucs are in. I think they've been really efficient in how they've used assets. They've not made mistakes in deals. You know, they've gotten great productivity. Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton. These guys have been, you know, really good players for them, but they've had to pay to re-sign them. They had to do it again with Brooke Lopez this summer with a real threat from Houston. And there comes a point where you may have to take a step back to take a couple forward again. And that's where you sometimes get into trouble with a superstar player who sees perhaps an opportunity elsewhere to walk right into a situation and be winning again without haste. So let's boil this down to its simplest form as we say hello once again to Brian Wynhorse. Brian, Giannis, the next time that he puts pen to paper, if you are reading the tea leaves, it will be either a contract in Milwaukee or will it be elsewhere? If I had to predict, I would say probably elsewhere. And the reason is because the league is not designed to support one team contending at the highest level for this long. I would even go so far as to say that the Bucs who are going to be in that top three, barring some injuries yet again this year, have bucked the trend. You know, Woj talked about the Golden State Warriors. We can all compare it to the L.A. Lakers with Kobe. Even in that run, over 20 years, Kobe got so frustrated that he asked for a trade at one point and the only way they were able to get their sort of second wind was because they were able to go through the draft and trading of young players, Andrew Bynum and then flopping Kwame Brown for Paulo Gasol. To do it in Milwaukee where you don't have people banging down the door to get there is incredibly hard to foresee. Now look, if Giannis was coming out and saying, I only want to be in Milwaukee, I want to retire a Milwaukee Buc, I think that it's, you know, that what I would feel differently, but I'm paying attention and so is everybody else in the league to what he's saying this year and the rules even got harder to keep your championship team. Every single time around, the teams are reformatting the rules to break up dynasty teams. That's not supposed to target a place like Milwaukee, it's supposed to target a place like L.A., but the Bucs are the ones that are gonna have to deal with the consequences of that because these new rules make it even harder on them as a potential multiple time taxpayer going forward. Really quickly, Brian said a lot and it's all accurate. Basically, this is what I hear. If the Bucs don't go to the conference finals or finals next year, there is a high, high probability that Giannis will not re-sign with them. Like Brian, I will say, if I had to predict and I do not want to, I would say to the pen on paper question, elsewhere. Only because to Richard's point, if it's not a finals appearance this year, if it's some resolution to the season that has Giannis questioning what this team can do, he becomes an expiring contract effectively and I actually think the Bucs at that point would have to look at the market for him. Here's what the Bucs at Milwaukee do have going for them. Giannis does not like change in any part of his life and that's still a factor you have to take into this when it comes a moment of truth to say, I'm gonna walk away from this place.