Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future has been a hot topic of late — a year from now, will he still be in Milwaukee, or will he be preparing to start the season with a new team? Nobody knows. Antetokounmpo doesn’t know.
What he does know is that he wants to play another six to eight NBA seasons, until age 36-38, and then finish his career in his home country of Greece. He said so on ANT1’s The 2night Show, a Tonight Show-style talk show in Greece (hat tip BasketNews.com and Bleacher Report).
“I don’t want to live in the United States. As soon as I leave the NBA, I want to return to Greece. I could end my career here, whether this team is called Filathlitikos, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, or Aris, I’m talking about all the teams now.”
Filathlitikos is the team Antetokounmpo played with before coming to the NBA. The other teams he listed are European powerhouses (ones that could be part of whatever the NBA Europe league ends up becoming in a couple of years).
We have seen European players head home to finish their careers before — Tony Kukoc from the Jordan-era Bulls, but more recently Serge Ibaka and Evan Fournier, among others — plus big-name NBA players such as Allen Iverson and Dominique Wilkins played there after the NBA. However, none of them were as internationally renowned as Antetokounmpo or would be the draws that he would be back in his home country.
This is years away, Antetokounmpo is 30 (he turns 31 in December) and said he would want to play in the NBA until age “36-38.” That’s another contract or two.
Which teams those final NBA contracts will be with will be the focus of a season of speculation coming up.
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