Antetokounmpo thought of leaving, his fate with the Bucks had already come to an end

Antesco.

Finally, Antetokounmpo chose to pull the trigger and announced that he might leave the team.

On May 12, American media person Shams said that after the Bucks were eliminated for three consecutive years, Antetokounmpo was open to leaving the Bucks for the first time.

From the moment Lillard's Achilles tendon ruptured, Antetokounmpo's bullets left the team were loaded. Everything is now just the order of Antetokounmpo and the Bucks.

Lillard's Achilles tendon ruptured.

Numbers on the whiteboard

Series G4, when Lillard was injured without a fight and sat on the ground, the bitterness on his face had already put an end to the Bucks' season.

In the Bucks locker room that night, veterans like Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis were still dealing with media interviews, and the young players had already left in a hurry. The last player to leave the locker room was Antetokounmpo.

There was a whiteboard in front of him, with only one number written on it: 15. The season when he won the championship four years ago, the Bucks developed a tradition that players who play key would pick up markers and write on the whiteboard how many more wins the team will need to be in the Larry O'Brien Cup.

is just that since 2023, the numbers on the whiteboard have gone from the future to the single digits.

The sign that was originally used to tell players that the championship was within reach became a footnote for the team to stagnate.

At the beginning of this season, Antetokounmpo made a clear point of view: he had enough of the first round of elimination.

On the day of media interview before the start of the season, when asked whether he believed that the team would introduce new players to help the team return to the finals, Antetokounmpo smiled and said, "Whether it is the Eastern Conference Finals or the Finals, we have to pass the first round first. Let's start from this step."

Many of the truths are said through jokes, and Antetokounmpo is no exception. Antetokounmpo mentioned the first round of the playoffs a few days later, "One of the challenges for me this year is to stay healthy, and the other challenge is the playoffs, we have to make a damn first round."

"Every year is important to me, because by the time I was thirty-seven or eight years old, I might be thinking, 'Oh, my peak period is over, but I have no achievements.' So dominate the game."

However, seven months later, the Bucks fell in the first round again.

In the past four seasons, there are many reasons for the Bucks' failure, such as injury during the playoffs, poor lineup running-in, etc., but the result is that since winning the championship in 2021, the Bucks have only won 11 playoff games in the past four seasons.

When the Bucks' goal is to "win in the present", the powerlessness of losing has become the main theme of Antetokounmpo in the past four years.

Andre Jackson Jr. becomes the epitome of the Bucks this season.

Purposeless

Obviously, the rupture of Lillard's Achilles tendon only accelerated the decline of the Bucks, and the team's aimless planning is the real deadly poison for the Bucks. During the mid-season championship, Andre Jackson Jr. kept asking assistant coach Rajon Rondo for advice on defense. At that time, the third-year student was the team's outside defense vanguard. In the Cup final, Jackson limited Gilgers Alexander's shooting percentage to 8 of 24 shots, scoring only 21 points, and the Thunder scored only 81 points in the whole game. The Thunders scored under 100 points in only three games throughout the season, and the penultimate low was 98 points.

Even though Jackson does not have much talent on the offensive end, he has the physical talent in participating in the slam dunk contest and can always drag the opponent's core players into the quagmire. The Bucks also defeated top teams through this style without much viewing.

Rivers also said: "We have been emphasizing our body shape advantages. The slower the pace of the game, the greater our advantage."

From November 16 to February 12 this year, Jackson started all 40 games he played, becoming the core of the Bucks' outside defense. However, with Kuzma's trade, Jackson fell out of rotation. Even though the Bucks could not find a way to defend the Pacers' outside, Jackson only made 2 minutes in garbage time in the playoffs.

Jackson obviously cannot save the Bucks' future, but it is a portrayal of the Bucks' unplanned plan, and such examples abound.

Rivers.

Before the start of the season, everyone knew that the Bucks' Big Three were Antetokounmpo, Lillard and Middleton. During the offseason, Middleton underwent double ankle surgery and missed the first 21 games of the season. In the 18 games he played, the Big Three beat the opponent 7.4 points per 100 rounds, but he only played 197 minutes with Lillard and Antetokounmpo. Among them, there are only three games in which the three start at the same time.

These three games happened to be the stage when Antetokounmpo and Lillard just returned, but the coaching staff quickly determined that when the three were on the court at the same time, the team's offensive rhythm would have problems, so they abandoned this combination.

This season, Antetokounmpo averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game, with a shooting percentage of 60.1%. Lillard averaged 24.9 points and 7.1 assists per game, with an effective shooting percentage of 54.7%, the fourth highest level in his 13-year career.

Both of them played extremely high-level individual performances, and the Bucks even held the league's highest three-point shooting percentage, but the team's offensive efficiency was only 10th. Before Lillard missed the last 14 games of the regular season, his offensive efficiency fell to 15th place in the league. The

Bucks lack the bargaining chips for signings.

No answer

The Bucks today are the most typical "low-to-high-to-high-to-high-to-high".

Next season, Lillard, who has a ruptured Achilles tendon, will still receive a salary of $54.1 million, which also destined the Bucks' fate next season.

Originally, the Bucks had the opportunity to trade Lillard to rebuild the lineup, but this serious injury brought everything to an abrupt end.

In the middle of the season, the Bucks were trying to make minor repairs. A large part of the reason for Middleton's trade with Kuzma was that Kuzma's salary was $7 million lower than Middleton's, so that the Bucks could be below the second luxury tax line and have a deal special worth $7.2 million. Avoiding touching the second luxury tax line means that the team's future first-round picks will not be frozen, and the team can trade first-round picks in 2031 or 2032 and can use a $14.1 million non-luxury tax middle class special case.

This is one of the few operating spaces for the Bucks during the offseason, but it obviously cannot meet Antetokounmpo's expectations for the championship.

In 2020 and 2023, Antetokounmpo signed a contract extension simply and neatly, but he often made some ambiguous words.

In August 2023, two months before the Bucks got Lillard, Antetokounmpo said in an interview with the New York Times: "I will not forget those who support me. They made me great, let me show the world who I am, and gave me a platform. But we must win another championship... Winning the championship is the top priority. I don't want to stay in the same team for 20 years but never win the championship again."

This is why, before the season ended, someone said with confidence that Antetokounmpo will leave the Bucks.

Antesco.

Before the start of the playoffs, Marcus Morris looked for Antetokounmpo's next home on ESPN's program; 10 hours before the game against the Pacers G5, Carlos Boozer said that this was the last game Antetokounmpo played for the Bucks; after the game, John Hollinger of Sports Illustrated posted a long article, believing that the best way for the Bucks is to trade Antetokounmpo.

In the last game of the season, Antetokounmpo scored 30 points, 20 rebounds, 13 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks. This data is unique in history, but the Bucks still lost, leaving only Antetokounmpo's angrily criticizing Halliburton's father for being messed up.

That night, when asked if I believe I can win another championship trophy in Milwaukee, Antetokounmpo chose to avoid it: "Listen, I won't say anything. I know what the result will be, and whatever I say will be misunderstood. I really wish I was still playing."

But sometimes, refusing to answer is also an answer.