Giannis Antetokounmpo has spent the past three years growing his business investments and taking charge of his basketball career.
As Giannis ascended to NBA superstardom he’s won the Most Valuable Player Award twice and is the best player on a championship team, the Milwaukee Bucks, and he also strove to bring his family along for his journey.
Three of his four brothers have played professionally in the United States.
A few months ago, Antetokounmpo launched Ante, Inc. to house the brothers’ projects and investments. It’s about Giannis’s life beyond basketball, though basketball still matters to him a lot.
In the next few weeks, he will be eligible for a three-year extension worth about $173 million, but he doesn’t plan to sign one just yet.
“The real question’s not going to be this year — numbers-wise it doesn’t make sense,” Antetokounmpo told NYT in an interview. “But next year, next summer it would make more sense for both parties. Even then, I don’t know.”
He added: “I would not be the best version of myself if I don’t know that everybody’s on the same page, everybody’s going for a championship, everybody’s going to sacrifice time away from their family like I do. And if I don’t feel that, I’m not signing.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo says he’s not signing an extension in Milwaukee next summer if everyone isn’t on the same page
“I would not be the best version of myself if I don’t know that everybody’s on the same page, everybody’s going for a championship, everybody’s going to… pic.twitter.com/M2GB601JJ1
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) August 24, 2023
His increased focus on business investments with his brothers as he has begun to understand his ambitions and goals more deeply.
“From 2020 to 2023, people think I’ve taken a large jump on the basketball court, but I think I’ve taken 10X jump off the court,” he said.
It started in the spring of 2020 when the world shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic. It wasn’t clear what would happen to players’ salaries or endorsement deals with the season in flux.
He began to think of ways to diversify his sources of income.
“We were sitting in the house. OK, now what?” Antetokounmpo said. “Basketball is taken away, what do I have?”
He downloaded a stock trading app and started investing for the first time. He began to reach out to successful people from other industries for advice and mentorship.
It was an eventful year for him, which may have contributed to his interest in growing his income.
His oldest child, Liam, had been born that February, and he won his second M.V.P. Award for the 2019-20 season, which the Bucks finished by losing in the Eastern Conference semifinals at the N.B.A.’s quarantined campus at Disney World.
A few months later, Antetokounmpo signed a five-year, $228 million extension with the Bucks, but something was not right. He felt numb and did not know why. He told the Bucks that he did not want to play basketball anymore.
During his rookie year, he missed his family so much that he insisted that the Bucks figure out to get them to Milwaukee, even threatening to go to Greece if the team would not do it.
When Giannis felt down during the 2020-21 season, he was reassured when he told his older brother Thanasis about his doubts. By then, Thanasis was playing for the Bucks, too, and said that if Giannis wasn’t happy, he would leave with him.
“I would have walked away in 2020,” Giannis said. “I care about joy and happiness. I care about my kids.”
The Bucks recommended he speak to a sports psychologist, so Antetokounmpo tried it. Doing so helped him find ways to cope with the stress and pressure he felt.
He rediscovered joy in playing basketball, and the Bucks won a championship that season.
“I think it’s the best feeling that I’ve felt so far in basketball,” he said.
The Bucks lost in the first round of last season’s playoffs, winning only one game against the Miami Heat as Giannis worked through injuries.
Milwaukee fired its coach, Mike Budenholzer, and hired Adrian Griffin, who had been an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors. That change, Antetokounmpo said, is part of why he is unsure if he’ll sign an extension.
“You’ve got to see the dynamics,” he said. “How the coach is going to be, how we’re going to be together. At the end of the day, I feel like all my teammates know, and the organization knows that I want to win a championship. As long as we’re on the same page with that and you show me, and we go together to win a championship, I’m all for it. The moment I feel like, oh, yeah, we’re trying to rebuild.”
“There will never be hard feelings with the Milwaukee Bucks,” he said. “I believe that we’ve had 10 unbelievable years, and there’s no doubt I gave everything for the city of Milwaukee. Everything. Every single night, even when I’m hurt. I am a Milwaukee Buck. I bleed green. I know this.
“This is my team, and it’s going to forever be my team. I don’t forget the people who were there for me allowed me to be great and to showcase who I am to the world and gave me the platform. But we have to win another one.”
He is halfway to his goal of playing 20 N.B.A. seasons, and he said he would like to spend them with one team, the way Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, and Tim Duncan did.
“But at the end of the day, being a winner, it’s over that goal,” he said. “Winning a championship comes first. I don’t want to be 20 years on the same team and don’t win another championship.”
Four brothers are co-founders of the Ante, Inc. website, but Giannis is the chairman.
Giannis involved his brothers in discussions about his new Nike contract, but he negotiated himself this summer. One of his earliest investments was in the Milwaukee Brewers in 2021.
The brothers have invested in a candy company, a nutritional company, and a golf team co-owned by Venus and Serena Williams and Serena’s husband, Alexis Ohanian.
They have a production company in the works.
This year, Giannis became a co-owner of some funds with Calamos Investments, whose chief executive, John Koudounis, is of Greek descent.
The joint venture donates 10 percent of its profits to financial literacy organizations.
“The way LeBron James is, or Michael Jordan is for the States, the same way I am for Greece,” he said. “Maybe larger.”
