#Bucks playoff dud fuels first phase of Giannis Antetokounmpo contract drama

If Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee is at all tied to its playoff run this year, the Bucks got off to an auspicious start Tuesday.

After securing the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, the Bucks came out and flopped in their postseason opener, getting upset by the Magic 122-110 in Game 1 of their first-round series.

Antetokounmpo dropped 31 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists, but it wasn’t enough. He was held without a field goal in the final 11 minutes as the Bucks struggles during the seeding games — in which they went 3-5 — carried over into Tuesday.

The Bucks lost to the Raptors in the conference finals last year, but suffered first-round exits in each of Antetokounmpo’s three other playoff trips before then.

The Greek Freak is set to become a free agent next summer, but this offseason becomes eligible to receive a supermax contract from the Bucks. How they fare in this year’s playoffs could help sway him one way or another.

“I always have said: Ask me once he has to make a decision,” an Eastern Conference scout told ESPN before teams reported to the NBA’s bubble. “It all comes down to timing. So many things can change.

“If they win it all, if they come through this and do that? There’s no way he’s leaving.”

Last year, Antetokounmpo was quoted as telling a Harvard professor that if the Bucks didn’t live up to expectations this season, “deciding whether to sign becomes a lot more difficult,” according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The 25-year-old later denied saying that and insisted he was misquoted, but declined to address the elephant in the room.

“We have a goal, which is play ’til the end, and I’m not going to talk about my free agency at all this season, I’m not going to distract my teammates,” Antetokounmpo told the Journal Sentinel in October. “The attention’s not going to be on me, it’s going to be on this team and what we’ve got to do to win.”

Of course, the attention will continue to be on Antetokounmpo until he either signs a super-max or lands elsewhere. He averaged 29.5 points, 13.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists during the regular season to lead the Bucks to a NBA-best 56-17 record and the right to face the No. 8 Magic.