NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo kept his promise to bring home “life-changing” money that would allow a teammate to buy a house by leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA Cup title on Tuesday night.
The winning share for beating the Oklahoma City Thunder in Las Vegas on Dec. 17 was a drop in the bucket for a perennial All-Star who will make more than $48 million this season. However, it added up to a significant amount for Bucks backup Liam Robbins, a 25-year-old center who played for three different colleges and went undrafted.
Antetokounmpo, 30, shared in the postgame press conference that he promised Robbins the Bucks would win the second edition of the NBA’s in-season tournament to help him buy a house in his home state.
“We have this joke within the team about our two-way guy Liam,” Antetokounmpo said. “I promised him from the first Cup game, I said, ‘We’re going to go all the way and you’re going to get your house in Iowa.’ So after every game I was like, ‘One step closer to your house in Iowa!’
“After the game, we went to the locker room and I saw smiles on their face.”
The winning NBA Cup share for each player on a standard NBA contract this season is $514,971. However, Robbins is on a two-way contract, which means he splits time between the Bucks and the Wisconsin Herd, Milwaukee’s affiliate in the NBA’s developmental G League. Two-way deals pay $578,577 this year, which is half of the rookie minimum, according to Sports Illustrated.
Players on two-way deals get half of the NBA Cup winning share, according to The Associated Press. That works out to $257,485 this season for players like Robbins and Bucks guard Ryan Rollins.
That means Robbins made nearly half a year’s salary in one night even though he didn’t play a single minute in the win over Oklahoma City.
Antetokounmpo had a triple-double with 26 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists in the 97-81 win over the Thunder to earn the NBA Cup Most Valuable Player award. He gave his take on the $514,971 winning share in the postgame press conference.
“For me, as I was saying before the game and halftime, the money does not matter to me,” he said. “It never mattered. If it mattered to me, I wouldn’t be who I am, I wouldn’t keep on pushing myself to the limit to improve every single year.