EuroBasket 2025, a tournament contested between the top national basketball teams in Europe, is set to feature a number of NBA talents, including Slovenia’s Luka Dončić, Serbia’s Nikola Jokić and Turkey’s Alperen Şengün, among many others.
Even though the event tips off in less than two weeks, one of the world’s top basketball superstars has been missing from his team’s pre-tournament practice sessions: Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The reason? According to Aris Barkas and Stavros Barbarousis of EuroHoops, the Milwaukee Bucks have yet to provide written approval for Antetokounmpo’s participation in the tournament, despite him already being named to Greece’s 16-man roster.
Antetokounmpo is in a unique situation among NBA players who are competing in the tournament. Most of them have not needed additional approval to play in this year’s edition of EuroBasket, but Antetokounmpo (as well as Dončić and Jokić) have because of their big-money contracts.
Barkas and Barbarousis reported from sources that, should any of these players get injured during the tournament, the money paid to their team (from the national basketball federation of the country the player represents) will not cover the full cost of their contracts. Therefore, the NBA teams would be liable for paying large sums of money while their superstars stay on the shelves.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets, respectively, have already processed the paperwork necessary for Dončić and Jokić. But the Bucks still have yet to do so with Antetokounmpo, adding another layer to the complicated relationship between both parties.
Antetokounmpo is likely to miss multiple exhibition games before Greece kicks off their EuroBasket 2025 campaign against Italy at 2:30 p.m. ET on Aug. 28. The game will be held at the Spyros Kyprianou Arena in Limassol, Cyprus.
