Giannis Antetokounmpo is headed to whatever summer spot he enjoys. The big question is not which tropical resort he’ll visit but which training camp he’ll be at in October.
In the grand tradition of the “MeloDrama,” “Dwightmare,” and “Clean Sweep,” the “GreekSeek” is lit!
The Milwaukee Bucks exited the first round of the NBA playoffs Tuesday night for the third straight year despite Giannis Antetokounmpo’s heroic efforts and now with his desire for another championship in Brew City unfulfilled, the belief is that he is headed elsewhere. Last night in talking to the media, the 6’11” Greek Freak made it clear that it’s too early to talk about his future.
“I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do this,” Antetokounmpo said when asked if he thought he could still win another chip in Milwaukee. “I know … whatever I say, I know how it’s going to translate. I don’t know, man. I wish I was still playing. I wish I was still competing and going back to Milwaukee. I don’t know.”
That answer — “I don’t know” — was enough to set fans tongues a-wagging and trade machines a-whirring across the NBA. It’s obviously not a surprise that the 31-year-old two-time MVP and one-time Finals MVP would consider departing.
As Brian Lewis wrote after the Bucks lost to the Indiana Pacers, the small market club is in desperate straits.
A combination of age and injuries has undone the Bucks. They’re in the worst of spots — sliding into mediocrity with no escape route.
They don’t control any of their own first-round picks until 2031, and only have one second-rounder over the next six years. Worse, they’re old and capped out.
Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis have player options for a combined $22.9 million. Add Antetokounmpo ($54.1 million), Lillard ($54.1 million) and Kyle Kuzma ($22.4 million), and the Bucks are within a hair of the salary cap. And that’s before considering free agent Brook Lopez, 37.
And Damian Lillard’s torn Achilles tendon has cast a pall on next season as well.
Moreover, Milwaukee is not New York, L.A., Miami or its neighbor to the south, Chicago. The Bucks play in the 25th out of the NBA’s 28 markets. Only Oklahoma City, New Orleans and Memphis are smaller. They have new owners as well, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, whose stewardship of the Cleveland Browns hasn’t been filled with parades.
Ever hear the phrase, “no way out?” Antetokounmpo deserves some of the blame for the team’s demise just as he did for the team’s championship three years ago. The win now strategy clearly failed.
For Brooklyn Nets fans, of course, Antetokounmpo is someone they’re heard mentioned as the franchise’s “Plan A” since their last set of superstars left for Philadelphia, Dallas and Phoenix.
Sean Marks seemed to more than hint about it when in his end-of-season media availability he said this about what it would take for the franchise to move from the organic to the opportunistic.
“If you’re going after max-level talent, they have to automatically and absolutely change the trajectory of your team. This can’t be like let’s go get this [guy] and lock ourselves into being a 6-7 seed. When we go all-in, you’re going in to compete at the highest level and contend.” [Emphasis ours.]
He couldn’t mention specifics unless he wanted to field an angry phone call from Adam Silver that would lighten his wallet and/or trigger a tampering investigation. But there does not appear anyone on the horizon, either a free agent or a player wanting out of his current circumstances that fits that description like Antetokounmpo. (Of course, there’s always the possibility that Marks is offering a feint in the game within the game that is the NBA.)
So, yes, the Nets will have to be considered one of the top petitioners for Antetokounmpo’s services. NO team has the combination of draft picks — 31 total, 29 tradeable — cap space — starting at a bare minimum of $45 million — market and money that Marks and Joe Tsai have husbanded. It’s a haul.
“I think we need to be opportunistic,” Marks said when discussing the upcoming free agent period in that same media availability. “In this market we’re always going to have various different free agents and opportunities thrown at us. Just simply being in a top five market in the league, that’s going to happen.”
Then he added, “We don’t want to get sped up. We’ve talked multiple times about being systematic and strategic in how we build here. We know we have 15 first round picks in the next six, seven years; so there’s a lot of draft assets at stake. There’s a lot of cap room at stake, and how we use that, it’s probably too early to determine.”
To get one of the league’s best players — you make your own list but Antetokounmpo isn’t falling below five, the Nets would have to revert to the same strategy that got them Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden. Remember them?
However, the Nets would have to be considered one of the main suitors, at least at this point, on Day One of the Greek Seek.
John Hollinger of The Athletic in his discussion of the Bucks situation (everyone seemed to have Bucks obituaries ready for Milwaukee’s last breath this morning) listed two teams as the primary possibilities, the Houston Rockets and the Brooklyn Nets.
Of the Rockets and Nets (whose prep work he praised.) Hollinger wrote:
The most obvious candidate is Houston. The Rockets can offer an electrifying mini-Giannis in Amen Thompson, salivating draft picks in the form of a 2025 lottery pick from the Suns, unprotected Phoenix firsts in 2027 and 2029 (the latter of which is the better of Phoenix’s or Dallas’) and enough salary-matching flotsam to offset Antetokounmpo’s incoming $54.6 million and get a deal to the finish line.
Brooklyn is the other candidate, with enough cap room to swallow other Milwaukee contracts (maybe not Lillard’s, but could the Nets take Connaughton and Kuzma?). The Nets can’t put a talent like Thompson in a trade, but they have four firsts in 2025 (likely pick Nos. 6, 19, 26 and 27), an unprotected Suns swap in 2028, three unprotected future firsts from the Knicks and all of their own future draft picks available in a trade. The combined cap relief and draft capital is a pretty rare package, especially with the Bucks’ recent tax issues.
Similarly, Tim MacMahon of ESPN notes that the Rockets, who are down 3-1 to the Warriors entering Game 5 in Houston, could switch from their own homegrown mantra to adding a superstar, using all those assets they have acquired from the Nets either in the original James Harden deal back in 2021 or last November’s swap of picks.
Those are the assets that would allow the Rockets to engage in any superstar trade discussions this summer — if that’s a path Houston opts to take. That’s far from a certainty, regardless of the Rockets’ playoff results.
“Even though it can be exciting to feel like you are as close as you may be, it’s important to move with the same level of patience that got us to where we are and to make sure that we’re always making decisions based on not just today, but the future,” Patrick Fertitta said. “Because we never want to value the near term over the long term. If the right opportunity presents itself where we feel like we can get materially better, we’re always going to do the work to know if it’s the right thing to do.
“But in a perfect world, we’d love to see this group grow up together…”
Sound familiar?
There’s also the possibility, as remote as it seems, that Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is ingrained in the Milwaukee civic as well as sports culture will want to stay the course.
“There’s a lot of times that life has made me sad or frustrated since I was a kid. I never gave up,” Antetokounmpo said Tuesday. “You know, I always try to find solutions in my life. I think it translates to the basketball court. I always try to, even though things might not happen the way I want it to happen. I always have class, and I have this optimistic mentality of coming back, keep on working. And there’s going to be a day that’s it going to be your turn.”
As Tim Reynolds of AP wrote Wednesday, nothing about this scenario will be easy.
Moving someone with two years and $113 million left on his contract — not to mention a player option that could extend it by another year and tack $63 million more onto the bill — will be difficult. And players don’t always get traded where they want to go; the obvious case in point there is when Lillard wanted to be traded by Portland to Miami and wound up in Milwaukee instead.
Indeed, as repeatedly noted, we are just waking up to Day One of said GreekSeek and that back-and-forths, the rumors, the disinformation and misdirection will be rife particularly between the Draft Lottery, now 12 days away, and the NBA Draft on June 25-26. The oddsmakers currently see Brooklyn as the likely landing spot for Giannis. Bright Lights, Big City. But it was the same oddsmakers who bet the Nets wouldn’t win more than 19 games. Stay tuned.