Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are bickering like children. It is time for everyone to move on. Time for one party to realize he is already past his prime and is on a road to nowhere in Milwaukee, and time for the other to wake up and rebuild this tire fire like an adult.
All this talk is pointless. The Bucks and their fans will eventually come to terms with the fact that the Giannis era is over. Whether they realize it now, in a year, in two years or like they should have a year and a half ago will be the difference between it taking three to five years to rebuild or it taking a decade.
The Bucks don't have a choice about whether to trade Giannis
The Bucks organization seems to believe that it is up to Giannis to decide if he wants an extension or to be traded; they are wrong. Antetokounmpo has held their franchise hostage with maybe-sorta-kinda trade requests for nearly two full NBA seasons. His greatness initially led to the Jrue Holiday trade in which the Bucks mortgaged their future to win a championship — led by their big three: Antetokounmpo, Holiday and Khris Middleton. Since their 2021 championship, however, Giannis’ influence has led to repeatedly detrimental and short-sighted decision-making. If they continue to operate like this, 2021 will turn to 2031 in the blink of an eye with nothing more to show for it.
When rumblings began that Antetokounmpo was unhappy after losing, they made a moderately defensible Damian Lillard trade that accidentally gifted their rivals, the Boston Celtics, Jrue Holiday and a championship. When it became clear that Middleton was no longer an asset, they traded him and their final controllable first-round pick to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, a replacement-level wing that they are paying $42 million over the next two seasons.
When Lillard began to deteriorate as a scorer and then suffered a season-ending Achilles tear, the Bucks waived and stretched his $113 million contract over the next five seasons, thereby paying him $23 million per year to not be on the team. They then signed Myles Turner with the created cap space, another player who has deteriorated as an asset.
Today, the Bucks control zero first-round draft picks until 2031, have zero young players and zero tradable assets; they have unconscionable amounts of dead money on the books. All they have are three Antetokounmpos, and they have to trade Giannis this summer if they want out from under this.
The Bucks do not have the ability to improve organically
I am in disbelief at the rhetoric coming out of the Bucks organization and from Giannis about how to handle the rest of the season — the executive summary: the Bucks want Giannis to sit out so they can tank, he wants to play. This all matters because the Bucks get their own first-round pick this year unless it falls below New Orleans, in which case they would get the Pelicans’ pick. In any case, if they tank properly, they can come away from this year with a lottery pick likely between the 6 and 10 slots.
This is incredibly good fortune, as had the Pelicans been a playoff team this year rather than absolutely horrendous, the Bucks would have received a pick outside the lottery — to that effect, they are essentially guaranteed no more lottery picks until 2030 at the earliest, and will not select a player in the first round next year or in 2029.
The Bucks ownership seems to think that if Antetokounmpo can simply sit out the rest of the season and they can add a lottery pick to their roster, perhaps they can sign Antetokounmpo to an extension and begin to organically reconstruct this thing. They cannot. With no other avenue to bring in valuable young players and very little cap flexibility given the Lillard/Turner fiasco, what is the point of dancing around reality? The only way to improve this team is to trade Antetokounmpo, this offseason, whether he wants it or not.
Because the Bucks’ problem is not that they don’t know what Giannis wants: it is that they are incapable of winning anything with their current roster and have extremely limited ability to upgrade it. Antetokounmpo signing an extension would be a calamity; what is to stop him from continuing to squeeze out panic moves from the Bucks that perhaps serve his interests but not Milwaukee’s? And what is to stop him from demanding a trade at any point during the extension? Kevin Durant proved there is no contract position you cannot demand a trade from.
It's better for Giannis and Milwaukee if they trade him soon
But what really bugs me is this: Milwaukee trading assets to load up in shorter and shorter terms to serve Giannis is increasingly not even in his interest. If Antetokounmpo is serious about winning more championships, he must be traded. It will be multiple years before Milwaukee has anything resembling a competitive roster, at which point Giannis will be well past his prime — he already is, and we haven’t seen peak Antetokounmpo in four years since he tore up 2022.
I understand that Antetokounmpo is the best player Milwaukee has had since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and that the small-market city may be waiting a long time for its next superstar. That is certainly the attitude of their ownership, and perhaps management thinks they will not be able to look at their fans if they trade Antetokounmpo without their hand being well and truly forced. That will not hold water for long.
For the sake of everyone involved, for the sake of sanity and responsible decision-making, for the good of the NBA, for Antetokounmpo, for Milwaukee and for the love of all that is holy, I beg: the Bucks must trade Giannis regardless of his wishes for the largest package of assets anyone has ever seen. If they don’t, it will be a long time before any of us think about the Milwaukee Bucks again.