Details have emerged from Giannis Anteteokounmpo’s meeting with Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry, where Lasry confirmed the team would go into luxury tax.
In the wake of their playoff collapse, every move of the Milwaukee Bucks have been and will continue to be analyzed at a critical point in their trajectory.
Case in point, the meeting that superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo had with co-owner Marc Lasry over the weekend certainly had Bucks fans and a whole lot of rival fans of opposing teams wondering what transpired in the meeting.
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Now the details from the meeting have emerged, which comes courtesy of ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski:
"“In a three-hour lunch meeting Friday in Milwaukee, Bucks co-owner and governor Marc Lasry made it clear to reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo that the franchise is willing to spend into the luxury tax to deliver him a championship supporting cast, sources told ESPN…Lasry and Antetokounmpo discussed the Bucks’ season and disappointing finish and brainstormed on some personnel upgrades that could be available to the franchise in the offseason, sources said. They are expected to talk further soon once Antetokounmpo returns from a vacation, sources said.”"
Clearly, the biggest news that will be gleamed from this latest report is Lasry confirming to his and the team’s superstar that the Bucks will reportedly going into the luxury tax next season after dodging it in a very high-profile manner last offseason.
With that said, pledging that the Bucks will go into the tax is a bit of a red herring. As it currently stands and Woj noted in his report, the Bucks’ payroll for the 2020-21 season comes in at the $132.7 million proposed luxury tax threshold, which is proposed because of the financial uncertainty surrounding the cap amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Even without factoring whether Antetokounmpo will his supermax extension when it’s presented to him at the first possible moment this offseason, the Bucks will be in the tax next season. It’s simply a matter of spending at this point, which may be done if the Bucks make the potential upgrades that Antetokounmpo and Lasry reportedly discussed.
Not that it’s breaking news at this point, but Wojnarowski also confirmed that head coach Mike Budenholzer’s job is safe, which was a topic of debate last week in the aftermath of the Bucks’ playoff collapse.
Antetokounmpo has reached the biggest point of his playing career, with his future in Milwaukee firmly at the center of it, and is seemingly looking for assurances from the organization to put together a championship-caliber team around him. Now it’s on ownership to live up to their end of the bargain and put their words of winning into action.