Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo eligible to sign the largest contract in NBA history
NBA MVP frontrunners, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Houston Rockets' James Harden were the only players voted unanimously into the All-NBA First team. Both the players received All-NBA First team votes on all 100 ballots, voted by a panel of expert sportswriters and broadcasters from the United States and Canada.
With his first All-NBA First Team selection and a third consecutive All-NBA selection, the Greek Freak Antetokounmpo is now eligible to sign the largest contract in NBA history, starting from the 2020 NBA season, when free agency begins. Currently, Oklahoma City Thunder star guard Russell Westbrook holds the largest contract in the NBA, a mammoth $206.8 million, through the 2022-23 NBA season.
For Antetokoumpo, a five-year contract extension north of $245 million would start in the 2021-22 NBA season. The exact figures of the contract are estimated to be an enormous $247.3 million overall and a mind-boggling $56.3 million in the final year of the contract.
There are certain conditions that should be met for a player to sign a supermax contract.
Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), a contract between the NBA (the commissioner and the 30 team owners) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), only those players can sign a supermax contract with their current teams, who have been in the league at least seven or eight years and have not been traded in the first four years.
Further, players must also prove their eligibility by consistently performing at a high level and being the crème de la crème of the league. This can be done in any one of the three ways:
• By winning the Most Valuable Player award in any one of the three most recent seasons.
• Selected to an All-NBA team in any one of the three most recent seasons.
• Winning Defensive Player of the Year in any of the three most recent seasons.
The 24-year-old who is the de facto face of the Bucks franchise is also one of the three finalists for the Most Valuable Player as well as the Defensive Player Of The Year award. If Antetokounmpo manages to win the Maurice Podoloff trophy, he would be the first Milwaukee Bucks player in 37 years to win the MVP after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won it in the 1971-72 season.