What does a franchise owe its great players? In turn, what does that star player owe the franchise?
One NBA team in each conference is dealing with existential questions related to that line of inquiry as we near the Feb. 5 trade deadline, as both Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks teeter out of championship relevance … even as these franchise talismans remain massively productive players.
To be clear, there are levels to this. Obviously, Golden State (26-20) is feeling relatively better about the current state of affairs than Milwaukee (18-26) with Antetokounmpo likely out for at least a month.
But strategically, it feels like each team is in a very similar place. Between the season-ending injury to Curry’s star sidekick Jimmy Butler and the season-long evidence that Antetokounmpo’s supporting cast isn’t anywhere near good enough to support a contender, the endgame is the same: a wasted year on the back end of a superstar’s prime that is already on borrowed time.
What is a franchise to do? I’ve mentioned this before in other places, but this is where the humanity of franchise logic differs markedly from what might be called video game logic. If you’re playing in “franchise mode” and you’re running either of these teams, you trade Steph or Antetokounmpo for an absolute mountain of assets and don’t even think twice about it.
That logic, alas, runs aground on the reef of reality. You don’t trade your iconic franchise player to Randomville in the middle of the night. (And if, for some reason, you do, the fans chant, “Fire Nico!” until you have to update your LinkedIn status.) Not in a business that requires fans to buy tickets and remain loyal, and not in one that relies at least in part on a franchise’s image and reputation to do some of the work of recruiting and retaining the best talent. And definitely not in a league in which you can’t just turn the game off if things don’t work out. Rushing to cash in your superstar stock just to get to the “20-62” part of the program sooner doesn’t seem all that appealing.
All that, of course, goes out the window if the franchise superstar asks for a trade; then, the organization is permitted to emerge from the event relatively unscathed, and the vibes internally are likely to degenerate to the point that it’s the best resolution for everyone. But we have no indication whatsoever that Curry plans to do anything of the sort, and even Antetokounmpo’s many musings of late have been relatively tame given the absolutely dire situation his team is in.
So … what’s a franchise to do? It’s not like you’re going to tank with Steph or Antetokounmpo on your team; besides, they’re good enough alone to sabotage the whole effort. (To wit: Even with this year’s utterly insufficient Bucks roster, Milwaukee is 15-15 when Giannis plays.)
Instead, having a talent of that level demands that the franchise “go for it” to at least some extent in every healthy year of the star’s prime, even as a championship-level endgame seems increasingly improbable each passing year. That, inevitably, becomes problematic, as last year’s gambles and short-term moves make it even more unlikely that this year’s roster can succeed.
Fortunately, both the Bucks and Warriors may have stumbled into quasi-plausible workarounds that kick the can down the road another six months, thanks to Antetokounmpo’s injury in the Bucks’ case and Butler’s injury in the Warriors’ case.
Essentially, the franchises are off the hook for 2025-26. The Bucks aren’t going to win enough games to make the Play-In Tournament, most likely, let alone bang out a playoff run. (With a loss in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Milwaukee would fall behind the Charlotte Hornets to 12th in the East, 3 1/2 games behind the 10th-place Atlanta Hawks.)
Golden State, meanwhile, can possibly tough out a Play-In run and save face in a quasi-competitive first-round series. But in the cutthroat West, the dream of “meaningful basketball” that Curry brought up a year ago — just before the chips-in Butler trade resuscitated the flagging Warriors — seems like a serious reach for the squad that surrounds him now.
However, that gives the Bucks and Warriors the freedom to plan ahead. They don’t need to spend the trade deadline making shortsighted moves for quick fixes that might not help much anyway; as Rick Pitino would say, Kevin Durant and Jrue Holiday aren’t walking through that door.
Instead, Milwaukee and Golden State should be thinking more broadly about what they can do to give their superstars one more bite at the apple, however improbable it may be, in 2026-27.
For the Bucks, that starts with one very easy ask of their superstar — take your time making your way back, Giannis. No hurry, really.
Milwaukee is in the very odd position of being strongly incentivized to tank despite not controlling its own draft pick. The Bucks owe a pick swap from the Holiday trade that was since traded to Atlanta, which means the Hawks get the better of their pick or the New Orleans Pelicans’ and the Bucks get the worse of the two. But because New Orleans is so bad — with the league’s third-worst record at 12-36 through Sunday — Milwaukee still has real incentive to tank. The scenario exists in which the Bucks lose their swap … and still end up with the second pick in the draft!
Remember, too, even if Milwaukee’s own pick ends up conveying at No. 1 to Atlanta, the Bucks would still benefit, because they’d vault up to the Pelicans’ position.
There are limits to how much the Bucks could benefit in the standings from tanking; they likely can’t do better than the league’s seventh-worst record, given that they’ve already banked 18 wins and face some, um, motivated competition to move into the bottom six. Nonetheless, they would already have the seventh-worst record if they lose on Tuesday and won’t have Antetokounmpo for another month.
Thus, they don’t need to do much beyond what they’ve already done to lock in a bottom-seven position, especially if Antetokounmpo isn’t back for several weeks. Finishing seventh-worst would essentially lock in a top-10 pick in a loaded draft as the Bucks’ worst-case scenario; beyond the pipe dream of the second pick, there’s a real possibility of both the Bucks and Pelicans picks ending up in the top four. (Roughly 15 percent if the Pels have the third-worst record and Milwaukee the seventh-worst, and no worse than nine percent as long as both are in the bottom seven.)
Thus liberated from having to chase 2025-26, the Bucks can think more broadly about what’s required for a good team in 2026-27. Yes, their precious lottery pick is a start, but that’s only the beginning. They can spend the trade deadline finding out the value of all their players, and contemplating tic-tac-toe moves in which another team’s overpay for one of their vets in February allows the Bucks to turn around and make an even better move in July — without needing to fear the win-now implications of weakening the roster for the rest of this lost season.
Come summer, the possibilities multiply, even with an unfortunate $22.5 million in salary cap dead weight for the stretched Daman Lillard. The Bucks can use their full non-taxpayer midlevel exception on a wing who is taller than 5-foot-8, for instance, or even consider using a protected future first (they can trade up to two, in 2031 and 2033, starting on draft night) to turn the many fungible salaries cluttering the back end of the roster into legitimate production. I can’t tell you every move available to them because I failed to bug the other 29 front offices’ conference rooms; I can tell you that they’re now liberated to give the 2026-27 team the best possible chance of, well, having a chance.
Similarly, the Warriors should look at taking their best, hardest swing for 2026-27; some of the moves on the table might also coincidentally improve them for 2025-26, but that isn’t the main point. Most obviously, they need to net out the greatest possible return for Jonathan Kuminga, even if that is relatively modest compared to what he could have netted in the past. (One outside-the-box alternative if the return is truly pitiful: keeping him past the deadline and declining his team option for 2026-27, so they could potentially use him in a sign-and-trade instead.)
More aggressively, the Warriors still have three tradable first-round picks, including one this year that is likely to be outside the lottery. While Golden State likely would prefer to keep all those picks for a potential blockbuster — ironically, in case Giannis becomes available — at some point, the 2026 first would have to be in play for the right move, especially if they can turn the contracts of Buddy Hield and/or Moses Moody into starter-level talent.
Again, tic-tac-toe type trades also are more possible if you’re not worried about instant roster maximization — maybe somebody’s overpay for Moody in February gives you the resources for a previously unattainable move in July. Maybe somebody is so enamored of De’Anthony Melton (difficult to re-sign coming off a minimum deal with no Bird Rights) that you can’t say no, or somebody randomly takes a liking to one of your other role players like Al Horford or Gary Payton II.
Moves like that don’t help the 2026 playoff run, but they give the Warriors more ammo to restock the roster with more starting-caliber talent in 2026-27 — a necessary infusion if they hope to give the Curry-Butler-Green core one more real chance.
In the bigger picture, the Bucks and Warriors are both navigating an extremely difficult space right now, cornered in a way by the legendary success of their own superstar players and with few remaining assets to blast their way out. Nonetheless, recent events may give each just enough breathing room to credibly take a mulligan on the 2025-26 season and restock for one more honest try in 2026-27.
Film Geekery: Boston’s brilliant bailout
Down by five with 7.9 seconds left in the first overtime in Brooklyn on Friday, with only one timeout left, here is a list of the things the Boston Celtics didn’t do:
- Burn the timeout immediately
- Speed dribble upcourt for a “quack 2” layup
- Use the entire remaining clock hunting for a 3
What they did, instead, was absolutely brilliant, and ended up winning them the game when they rallied to tie it on two 3-pointers before prevailing in double overtime.
Following two made Zaire Williams free throws, the clock was stopped and Boston inbounded from its own baseline. Getting the first 3 without using a timeout was key, and the Celtics needed to get it extremely quickly because the clock was dwindling and would still run while the shot was in the air.
Despite not using the timeout, the Celtics dialed up a play to airmail a long pass to center Amari Williams and have him immediately pass to Payton Pritchard, who pump-faked a defender and then hit a crucial triple that cut the Nets’ lead to two. The entire play used only four seconds:
It’s tough to tell whether this was a set play or straight improv (based on Pritchard calling for the ball in the backcourt). But if it was the former, it’s pretty amazing Boston pulled this off — the trigger man, Williams, was a late second-round pick from Kentucky on a two-way contract who was called up from the G League team in Maine that morning. He had played a total of 16 minutes for the Celtics in the previous six weeks and had only checked into the game moments earlier, between free throws — and that was only because Boston’s other centers, Neemias Queta and Luka Garza, had both fouled out.
Either way, this was a phenomenal play to get back in a game that seemed over and should be another bullet point in Joe Mazzulla’s Coach of the Year resume, one that turned a microscopic win probability into an actual, real W. After Pritchard’s 3, Boston fouled immediately and the Nets split free throws. Boston advanced the ball with its still-preserved timeout and took advantage of a defensive mix-up to get a game-tying 3 from Hugo Gonzalez before prevailing in double overtime.
Rookie of the Week: Tre Johnson, 6-5 SG, Washington
The sixth pick in the 2025 draft didn’t receive much shine while the Wizards limped out to a miserable start, but his recent play offers more encouragement that Washington has found itself a potential starter in the marksman from Texas.
Johnson scored a career-high 26 points in Saturday’s loss to Charlotte and added a career-high six assists. Importantly, he got up 15 3-pointers — nearly doubling his previous high! — which is the whole reason they drafted him. Between his range and his quick trigger, he can be a threat from almost anywhere. In this next clip, for instance, he pulls up over a closing big as a right-hander going right, a tough shot for most guys to get into.
Johnson is up to 39.3 percent from 3 on the season, which is good but probably not quite at the level at which he’s a panic-inducing sniper. Ditto for his 10.5 3-point attempts per 100, which is why the 15 attempts on Friday were so encouraging. His pathway toward being a plus offensive player is making better than 40 percent and bombing at least a dozen treys per 100 possessions.
Johnson needs to shoot at that level, because his game inside the arc remains fairly toothless. Only six percent of his shot attempts have been at the rim, he rarely draws fouls and he shoots 50 percent inside the arc.
Encouragingly, however, Johnson also showed some facility as a playmaker via the threat of his shot. Teams are going to overcommit to take away his shot, and that should leave openings. Watch here as he curls his cut and hits Alex Sarr for a dunk. The pass wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. Yes, more of this, please:
Overall, Johnson’s rookie year has been about par for the course for a teenager taken sixth. (He turns 20 in March.) His advanced numbers are negative, as they are for most rookies, but he’s sporting a 12.3 PER and his monthly splits show an upward trend.
Most notably, he’s been significantly better in 19 games as a starter, a spot where he now seems locked in with the recent trades of C.J. McCollum and Corey Kispert for the frozen-in-amber Trae Young. Now the question is whether he can build on it by developing his playmaking and 3-point volume and adding a bit more defensive bite.