The title is super-clickbaity, as no Indo-Europeanist working today believes in a single Pre-Greek language; this was the idée fixe of the scholar Robert Beekes well over a decade ago now, and very flawed research as Beekes was succumbing to dementia then. In fact, within the field "Pre-Greek!" has become something of an inside joke.

The article does eventually mention the current state-of-the-art, but only after perpetuating the misconception for some paragraphs, and that is poor form for a pop-sci article.

I don’t agree with this characterization of the article at all. What you see as clickbaity I see as using a reductive idea to set the stage for a more complex one. I just think this is good, engaging writing.

Even for a non-linguist like myself, the article didn't feel right. I expected to find more information about the Thracians, who inhabited those lands for quite some time and left some extraordinary (albeit non-written) heritage.

The author does mention the possibility of more than one non-IE pre-Greek language, as well as the possibility of an Indo-European predecessor in the region.

There are similar arguments over Pictish, but at least with Greek there is a substantial body of vocabulary, which Pictish lacks.