After his second season with the Lakers and third season with an NBA team, center Kostas Antetokounmpo has now accumulated three years of service in the league, making him ineligible to sign another two-way contract with any team, per Larry Coon’s invaluable CBA FAQ.
As a result of that reality — in conjunction with him not really displaying anything resembling NBA-level skills over his three years and his brother, two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, signing a long-term extension with the Milwaukee Bucks so Kostas is no longer tamper bait — Kostas may be headed out of the NBA entirely this offseason, according to Stavros Barbarousis of Eurohoops.Net.
Olympiacos Piraeus and Panathinaikos Athens have inquired about big man Kostas Antetokounmpo according to Eurohoops sources.
Antetokounmpo, 23, is becoming a free agent after spending the last two seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers. He’s now occupied with the Greek national team ahead of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament of Canada and will then evaluate the offers he has in order to decide on his future.
Kostas missed the Lakers’ playoff run while “attending to a personal matter in Greece,” and played just 56 minutes for the team in 15 appearances this season. He scored 12 total points on 3-10 shooting to go with 19 total rebounds, and turned the ball over 11 times while committing 8 fouls. The Lakers could theoretically make Kostas a restricted free agent by tendering him a minimum-salary qualifying offer, but after two middling-at-best seasons, it seems unlikely they’d bring him back on any sort of guaranteed contract, especially now that his brother has chosen to remain with the Bucks for years to come. Honestly, as my friends the Kamenetzky brothers have noted, it was an incredibly classy and touching move that the Lakers did not immediately cut him after Giannis signed his extension. Solid self-restraint, Rob.
But whether Kostas is heading to Greece, another NBA team or some other league elsewhere in the world next, he’ll always be a champion, and we’ll always have the tampering jokes his tenure led to.
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