“Of course, yes [he considered whether to ask out of Milwaukee]. Guys, every summer there’s truth to every report. The same thing I’ve been saying my whole career — I want to be on a team that allows me, gives me a chance to win a championship and wants to compete at a high level. I think it’s a disservice to basketball, it’s a disservice just to the game to not want to compete at a high level, to not want your season to end in April. So, it’s pretty much the same. It’s not the first time.”
This summer may not have been the first time Giannis Antetokounmpo considered his future and asking for a trade — as he said at media day — but it may have been the most serious.
Antetokounmpo is now with the Bucks, having recovered from COVID, flown to Milwaukee from Greece, and joined his teammates at training camp. He may be all in with this team to open the season, but this summer he considered a move to New York, and the Bucks and Knicks had conversations about a potential Antetokounmpo trade, talks that never really gained traction, reports Shams Charania of ESPN.
Several teams were discussed internally, but one emerged as the only place Antetokounmpo wanted to play outside of Milwaukee: the New York Knicks, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation told ESPN.
The Bucks picked up the Knicks’ call on Antetokounmpo, and the sides engaged in conversations for a window of time in August, league sources said, but the teams never got traction on a deal.
The Bucks insisted to the Knicks that they preferred not to move Antetokounmpo, but those in Milwaukee believe New York did not make a strong enough offer to continue even discussing a trade, league sources said. It’s unclear how the Bucks would have responded to an all-out chase by the Knicks … New York, for its part, believes the Bucks never were serious about entertaining an Antetokounmpo trade, sources said.
Let’s be clear, the Milwaukee Bucks do not want to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo and will only do so if he demands it. He is the greatest player in franchise history (with all due respect to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). He’s the player who not only makes them a threat on the court but fills the building with fans and has sponsors wanting to do business with the Bucks. Antetokounmpo is both the face and the driving economic engine of this franchise. Milwaukee wants to keep him badly enough to waive-and-stretch Damian Lillard (leaving $22.5 million in dead money on the books for each of the next five years) to free up the money to sign stretch five Myles Turner away from Indiana.
If ever forced to trade him, Milwaukee will ask for a boatload of players — ideally quality young players, plus veteran contracts they can flip in a trade — and a lot of draft picks, all of it to jump-start the inevitable rebuild. New York is not flush with young players and has only one first-round pick, plus a couple of swaps, to offer. This trade works on paper a couple of different ways — OG Anunoby and Josh Hart plus that first-round pick to Milwaukee, or Karl-Anthony Towns and Miles McBride plus the pick (the Bucks would need to waive some players to make the roster numbers work in either deal) — but is either of those enough for Milwaukee? It’s unknown if the Knicks ever got close to that offer or what was informally discussed.
New York is in the mix to win the East this season without Antetokounmpo, it is not desperate to make this trade. It’s also fair to ask how Antetokounmpo and Jalen Brunson would work together (both are All-NBA players because of what they do with the ball in their hands, neither is as special working off the ball). The feeling in league circles has been that if Antetokounmpo became available the Knicks would be at the front of the line in terms of interest, but would they have an offer that interests the Bucks right now? As great as Antetokounmpo is, would the Knicks break up their best team in decades to chase him that hard?
If Antetokounmpo does get frustrated in Milwaukee this season, trading his $54.1 million salary at the deadline would be incredibly difficult in the tax apron era of the NBA. It’s likely more of an offseason move.
Just add this to the list of things to watch.
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