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This offseason could prove to be very eventful, and the proverbial first domino to fall could be Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
After a third straight first-round playoff exit, as well as the Achilles injury Damian Lillard suffered in the postseason, the Bucks' future is murky at best. And Antetokounmpo seems to be aware of that since he is reportedly considering asking for a trade out of Milwaukee.
It's unknown whether Antetokounmpo, a two-time NBA MVP who has played for the Bucks since they drafted him in 2013, will want to leave Milwaukee, but regardless, ESPN NBA insider Brian Windhorst believes Antetokounmpo will be part of the first major development of the NBA offseason.
“This is all going to be basically through, largely, the trade market,” Windhorst said on ‘Get Up' today. “First up will be Giannis, whether or not he leaves Milwaukee, that will be a big thing. I really do think Kevin Durant is going to have to wait for Giannis because there’s going to be some teams that are interested in both, and then KD. Of course, then you’re going to say who? Well, all I’m going to say is this: Two years ago, I would argue the biggest and most impactful trade that happened was Jrue Holiday going to Boston. We didn’t know that that was possibly going to happen until Dame Lillard got traded to Milwaukee.
“So what I think is you’re going to see is a number of teams looking to aggressively either upgrade their rosters or offload money, and the series of ripple effects from what could be a Giannis trade and then a KD trade could be wide-ranging.”
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Antetokounmpo has spent his entire career with the Bucks, whom he led to their first NBA championship in 50 years in 2021. But since then, Milwaukee has not reached the Eastern Conference Finals again; in 2022, the Bucks lost to the Boston Celtics in the second round, and over the past three years, they have fallen to the Heat and Pacers twice in the first round.
Injuries have played a major factor in the postseason failures — Khris Middleton missed the entire series vs. the Celtics in 2022, Antetokounmpo dealt with injuries in each of the following two playoffs, and Lillard missed Game 1 of this year's first-round series before tearing his Achilles early in Game 4 — but Lillard's injury, at the very least, will bleed into next season and potentially the year after that, potentially extinguishing the Bucks' championship aspirations.
If Antetokounmpo does ask out, and Milwaukee grants the request, multiple teams are expected to be interested in his services; the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Brooklyn Nets, among others, are reportedly among the favorites to land Antetokounmpo in what would surely be a blockbuster trade this summer.
