When the Milwaukee Bucks showed up for training camp on Sunday, Khris Middleton presented his teammate Giannis Antetokounmpo with a gift for his 26th birthday: a pen. Antetokounmpo did not understand its significance at first.

“Then I was thinking about it, and I realized he was wanting me to sign the contract,” he said.

Antetokounmpo got the joke. He thought it was funny. But as more teammates arrived and they continued to bestow him with pens, he apparently stopped laughing.

“It got a little bit old,” he said. “I’ve got 20 pens here in my locker.”

The problem is that Antetokounmpo has not used any of them for their intended purpose. He has until Dec. 21 to sign a so-called supermax contract extension that would be worth about $227 million and would run through the 2025-26 season. Barring that, or a more modest extension, he would become an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Waiting is the hardest part in Milwaukee, which has gone 49 years since the Bucks won their only N.B.A. championship and now has no shortage of Greek Freak agita. Fans have watched Antetokounmpo blossom from a spindly-limbed teenager into one of the league’s most dynamic forces, a back-to-back winner of the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award.

Source: New York Times

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