We’ve been waiting all offseason for some sort of resolution on those nagging Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors. Now, we’ve seemingly gotten it. According to ESPN, the Milwaukee Bucks star not only explored the possibility of changing teams for the first time in his career, but actually had a preferred destination in mind: the New York Knicks.
The Knicks and Bucks reportedly discussed a deal, but they never gained significant traction. Antetokounmpo will now enter the season as a member of the Bucks, but his well-chronicled desire to win a second championship persists. Antetokounmpo has two years left on his contract. He will not be eligible for an extension until next summer, when he will be one year away from free agency. At that point, one way or another, a decision will almost certainly be made. If he wants to force a trade, he will have the leverage to do so. The Bucks now seemingly have at least the beginning of the 2025-26 season, if not the entire year, to convince him not to do so.
And if he does? It seems as though the Knicks will be atop his wishlist. So let’s dissect this news. What does this mean for the Knicks, for Antetokounmpo’s future and for the rest of the teams (and there are surely a lot of them!) that would like to one day acquire the two-time MVP?
What would a Giannis-to-the-Knicks trade look like?
The timing here is less than ideal. Last offseason, the Knicks traded six total first-round picks, another first-round swap and two important players (Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo) for Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges. The move helped propel them to the Eastern Conference finals. It may yet launch them to a championship. It also made it far more difficult to trade for Antetokounmpo.
Should the Bucks trade their best player, they’d have little incentive to get veteran players back. They’d be moving into a rebuild, one in which they do not currently control any of their own first-round picks until 2031. It would therefore be imperative for them to get youth and draft capital back in exchange for Antetokounmpo.
For the time being, the Knicks don’t have much of it to offer. Their only tradable first-round pick right now is essentially fake: a 2026 Wizards first-round pick that is protected 1-8. Do you expect the Wizards to pick ninth or lower? If they don’t, the pick turns into two second-round picks. Next summer, though, New York’s 2033 first-round pick unlocks from a trade perspective. That pick is far more interesting. Remember, at that point, Antetokounmpo will be 38 and Jalen Brunson will be 36. The Knicks should be bad by then. Swap rights on their 2032 first-round pick will also be available.
When the Bucks traded for Damian Lillard, they essentially completed the trade under those parameters. They didn’t have many future first-round picks available, but they gave Portland what they could (an unprotected 2029 pick along with swaps in 2030 and 2032) under the logic that those picks, while far off, would eventually become quite valuable. They then supplemented their offer with a high-level player, Jrue Holiday. The Knicks could theoretically do the same, offering high-level veterans that the Bucks could either keep or more likely flip elsewhere for more assets.
That raises a further question: how much are New York’s veterans worth on the trade market? The Knicks aren’t getting the five first-round picks they dealt for Bridges back. He just signed a hefty four-year extension that will take him through his age-33 season. Karl-Anthony Towns is similarly locked in through his age-32 season, and OG Anunoby is signed through his age-31 campaign. All three are pretty valuable as players, but we live in a cap environment that punishes expensive contracts. Bridges will make over $33 million in the 2026-27 season, and his deal only goes up from there. Anunoby will be above $42 million at that point, and Towns tops $61 million for the 2027-28 season.
These players are expensive. They also have notable flaws. For Towns, it’s defense. For Anunoby, it’s durability. For Bridges, it’s the meaningful decline he’s displayed over the past few years. He’s no longer an All-Defense candidate nor has his 3-point shot held up as well as it did in Phoenix. The Knicks would probably have more trouble moving them than Portland did with Holiday, who came with no weaknesses besides his age. And of course, Antetokounmpo is substantially more valuable than Lillard.
Even as the Knicks built a Giannis-less contender, they did so in a way that never quite closed the door on an Antetokounmpo deal. When they extended Bridges this offseason, for instance, they did so on July 31. That matters because such extensions come with a six-month trade restriction, and the Bridges restriction expires at the end of January. The trade deadline is Feb. 5, giving the Knicks a window in which they could legally trade him. Of course, if the Knicks were to try to make a trade during the season, they’d be doing so without their 2033 pick at their disposal. They just wanted to leave themselves the option if they needed it.
So the Knicks have done their best to plan for the possibility of an Antetokounmpo trade without sacrificing their present to do so. Yet bringing a 2033 pick and the Towns-Bridges-Anunoby trio into a bidding war against, say, Houston and San Antonio would be like bringing a butter knife to a gun fight. The Spurs and Rockets have mountains of tradable picks and loads of talented young players on cheap rookie deals. If this comes down to who makes the best offer, it probably won’t be the Knicks.
Which brings us to our last two questions of this section. The first, and the one that’s going to sting Knicks fans the most, is whether New York would put Brunson on the table in such a trade. This obviously wouldn’t happen in the initial negotiations. Aside from the fact that Antetokounmpo presumably wants to play with Brunson and the fact that Brunson is unquestionably the most popular Knick of this century, Brunson’s relationship with Knicks management is unusual even by superstar standards. Leon Rose is his godfather. It’s entirely possible that he simply decides that any championship equity gained in trading Brunson simply wouldn’t be worth it to him or the fanbase.
Milwaukee would inevitably ask for Brunson. New York would inevitably say no. And that’s where the staring contest would truly begin, because while the Knicks may hesitate to put their best player on the table, there are other teams that wouldn’t. The real question on this front is whether the Knicks would rather have Brunson or Antetokounmpo, because it’s entirely possible that Rose ultimately needs to make that decision.
But there is another human element we need to consider here. How far is Antetokounmpo willing to go to get to New York, if that indeed remains his preferred destination should he decide to push for a trade? Some stars take a hands off approach to trade requests, desiring simply to move. Others try to stick their thumb on the scale and scare off undesirable suitors. According to Shams Charania’s reporting Tuesday, “those who know Antetokounmpo well say that is the antithesis of who he is.” He may not want to make it ugly. But if he wants to get to New York, and do so with Brunson as his running mate, he might have to. This raises a further set of questions.
Does Giannis have the leverage to get to New York?
When a player wants something badly enough, he can usually get it. The easy comparison here is Anthony Davis. The Boston Celtics had the most to offer for him, but he made it absolutely clear that he didn’t want to play for them. That eventually allowed Davis, with one year remaining on his contract, to get to his team of choice: the Los Angeles Lakers. Subtler versions of this story play out from time to time.
This summer, Antetokounmpo probably didn’t have the leverage to do this. At this point, he still has two years left on his contract. Antetokounmpo is so valuable that there inevitably would have been teams willing to trade hauls merely for the chance to have him for two playoff runs and the hope that he would re-sign afterward. Things get much dicier next summer, when he only has one year left on his deal. We’ve seen teams take risks on expiring contracts before, but there were always explainable circumstances involved.
The Raptors did it for Kawhi Leonard, but his value was at its lowest point because of injuries. Had Boston or Philadelphia trusted his health more, that’s likely where he would have ended up. Similarly, the Thunder traded for Paul George on an expiring contract when the whole world knew he wanted to be in Los Angeles. But they didn’t have to give up a single first-round pick to do so because Indiana happened to love two of their younger players, Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. At the time, the response to that trade was that the Pacers didn’t get nearly enough back. We now know that Oladipo and Sabonis were far better than we realized at the time. Antetokounmpo is simply more valuable than Leonard or George were. The price to rent him for a year would be higher, and perhaps unjustifiably high for reasons we’ll address shortly.
The one major difference between Antetokounmpo now and Davis in 2019? The team for which Davis wanted to play had the cap space to sign him outright when he eventually hit free agency in 2020. That probably isn’t a threat the Knicks can make. Their four highest-paid players are all under contract in the summer of 2027, when Antetokounmpo would become a free agent. That will make it harder for Giannis to tell teams that want him not to trade for him because he can’t threaten to sign with the Knicks as easily as Davis could the Lakers.
Fortunately for Antetokounmpo, there is a different boogeyman available to him. The Knicks may not have max cap space in 2027 … but the Lakers do. If his goal is to win a second championship, partnering up with Luka Dončić is a sensible path to doing so. If he wants to be in a big market, Los Angeles obviously qualifies. That’s his leverage. He may not be able to sign with the Knicks outright in 2027, but he can scare every other team off by telling them they’d only be a pitstop before he jumps to the Lakers.
The Lakers aren’t even the only feasible threat in this world. If this is about New York, specifically, the Nets should have max cap space in 2027. Plenty of teams will, with the Warriors and Clippers also seemingly eyeing the summer of 2027. That would make it hard for any team to justify trading for Antetokounmpo without assurances that he’d stay. There are simply too many places for him to jump if he isn’t happy.
Does this mean he can get to New York, specifically? The jury’s still out. But he could certainly shrink the field considerably. We know the Lakers are willing to trade for players without an extension in place because they just did so with Dončić, for instance, but plenty of other teams would get scared off. He can give New York a considerable advantage, but it ultimately takes two to tango, and if the Bucks aren’t interested in what the Knicks have to offer, there’s just not a lot Antetokounmpo can do about that.
If not New York … where?
We’re going to have to see how this season plays out before making any definitive statements. As we’ve covered, in a true bidding war, it’s San Antonio or Houston. Unless Oklahoma City wants to get involved, which seems unlikely, those are the two teams with the most to trade. It’s possible that either or both of those teams have promising enough seasons to convince Antetokounmpo that he should want to play for them. It’s also possible that either or both of those teams are happy enough with what they see out of their own players that they elect not to make a serious pursuit. Remember, Antetokounmpo is about to enter his age-31 season and plays a style that isn’t likely to age especially well. The Rockets and Spurs have decade-long runways. They might prefer to keep their powder dry.
The Lakers are the true looming threat. Their 2027 cap space allows them to play the long game if needed. Starting next summer, they’ll have three tradable first-round picks along with multiple available swap rights. They’ll have Austin Reaves, though likely through a sign-and-trade, as another high-end chip to dangle. But most importantly, they have Dončić, and when superstars move, it’s very often because they want to play with another superstar. Dončić has been an active recruiter for the Lakers this offseason, notably reaching out to Marcus Smart and sharing an agent with new center Deandre Ayton. For now, we know only that the Knicks are Antetokounmpo’s first choice. If market matters, the Lakers would make sense as his second.
So would the Nets, who themselves have a mountain of draft assets (ironically coming from the Knicks) to dangle in a possible trade. The holdup there would be Brooklyn’s otherwise underwhelming roster. The Nets are a blank slate right now. To convince Antetokounmpo to come play for New York’s other team, they’d have to present a realistic vision for how they could build up the roster around him.
The Warriors and Clippers are in the same boat, though both come with drawbacks. The Clippers are obviously in the middle of an investigation that could drastically decrease their desirability as a destination, and frankly, it’s hard to see a good reason to choose this decrepit roster over Dončić if winning in Los Angeles is the goal. The Warriors have a similarly aging roster, but lack Brooklyn’s war chest of draft assets to rebuild with. Antetokounmpo would have to be on board with trying to win with Golden State’s older players, or signing there in 2027 with someone else of note once their books clear. Antetokounmpo shares an agent (Alex Saratsis) with Bam Adebayo, so Miami has always been mentioned as a possible destination, but frankly, their past few seasons have left quite a bit to be desired. They have work to do to prove they deserve a player of his caliber.
Looming in the background here are the teams that control Milwaukee’s draft picks. Antetokounmpo probably isn’t interested in playing for the Pelicans or Blazers, but those teams hold unusual leverage in these trade talks because they can give the Bucks the ability to tank back. Expect both to try to nudge their way into talks as a third team.
The Hawks have a bit of Milwaukee draft control, as they will receive the better of Milwaukee’s or New Orleans’ first-round pick in 2026, plus the worse of those two selections in 2027 so long as both aren’t in the top four. Atlanta is a slightly more realistic sleeper destination considering the youth and talent it has accumulated, plus the potential for a top pick in next year’s draft as a deal’s centerpiece.
The truth, though, is that every team in the NBA will be interested to some degree if Antetokounmpo becomes available. The question will be who makes the strongest offer and how aggressively Antetokounmpo is willing to steer negotiations. If he wants the Knicks, there’s a good chance he ultimately gets to the Knicks. Stars wield the power in these proceedings. That puts the Bucks in the precarious position of trying to convince him to stay while knowing that if they fail, they’ll not only lose him, but could do so for far less than he is actually worth.
So where does all of this leave the Bucks?
In short, they’re fighting an uphill battle. Charania’s reporting made it clear that Antetokounmpo is skeptical of Milwaukee’s ability to genuinely compete for a championship, which is the goal that will seemingly drive his decision-making moving forward. The Bucks have already engaged in trade talks, if only to a limited extent.
They are fortunate to be playing in a weak Eastern Conference. With the Celtics and Pacers seemingly out of the mix this season, Milwaukee has a golden opportunity to outperform expectations enough to potentially earn Antetokounmpo’s signature on an extension next offseason. But given the rather glaring deficiencies on their roster, they’re going to have a hard time doing that. They haven’t really replaced Damian Lillard. Cole Anthony and Kevin Porter Jr. are their best scoring guards, and neither can touch even the aging, diminished version of Lillard we saw in Milwaukee. They have no point-of-attack defense, and both Antetokounmpo and Myles Turner have declined as rim-protectors in recent years. The Kyle Kuzma trade was a disaster, at least last season.
For now, the Bucks have two things going for them: they still have Giannis, and they’ve been able to surround him with a ton of 3-point shooting. They led the NBA in 3-point percentage last season, and Antetokounmpo posted MVP-caliber numbers when the Bucks moved him to point guard following Lillard’s blood clot last season. He’ll likely do the same this year. Point-Giannis and shooting is a scary formula. It just isn’t enough to seriously compete for a championship.
That’s going to force the Bucks into some pretty scary questions. The Bucks can currently trade a first-round pick in either 2031 or 2032. Such a pick would be immensely valuable whether Antetokounmpo stays or goes. That pick might be the only path Milwaukee has to trading its way into true contention. Giving it up might also dig an even deeper hole for them to eventually dig themselves out of if Antetokounmpo does indeed force his way out. How many more assets are the Bucks willing to commit to keeping the best player in franchise history, especially after eating over $100 million in dead money to turn Lillard into Turner?
The ball is in their court now. Antetokounmpo may want to be a Knick, but he’s a Buck right now, and Milwaukee still has a chance to make sure he remains one. The risk would be substantial. The reward would be the chance to keep a franchise icon from ever changing teams. Tuesday’s reporting makes it clear that their hopes of doing so are dimmer than ever. But they haven’t faded completely, so the onus is on the Bucks to make sure they never do.