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The Milwaukee Bucks are reportedly, finally, willing to listen to trade offers for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Congratulations on accepting the inevitability the entire basketball world has seen all season. The Bucks are either seven months late to this realization, or they’re five months early.
The time to trade Antetokounmpo was last June. Any hope Milwaukee had of winning with him in the near term was dashed when Damian Lillard tore his Achilles. Last June, the Bucks probably could have extracted a historic package from one of the asset-rich Western Conference juggernauts. At this stage, the Rockets and Spurs are probably keeping their best assets off the table. Both are good enough to contend for the title with what they have. Both would need to pretty drastically overhaul their supporting casts to accommodate Antetokounmpo’s playing style. Neither seems especially inclined to make a deal of this magnitude on the fly.
Maybe that changes if they flame out of the playoffs early. That’s part of why an offseason trade makes far more sense than a deadline deal. You just never know which teams will have disappointing postseasons or how they’ll react when they do. There are teams that aren’t realistically in the mix today who might be over the summer.
The entire trade landscape flips at that point. Teams that are hard-capped right now might have more financial flexibility. Expanded rosters make it easier to accommodate unbalanced trades. And considering the Bucks want draft picks in this deal, it’s worth noting teams gain access to another year’s worth of draft picks when the league year ends. Antetokounmpo is 31, increasingly injury-prone and plays in a way that doesn’t figure to age especially well. You’d probably want to control his next team’s 2033 first-round pick. Teams trading 2026 picks will actually know where they are. The Bucks wouldn’t have to trade for ping-pong balls.
That said… it’s still worth exploring the landscape now. You never know. Maybe someone surprises you with a gigantic offer. Even if an offseason trade makes more sense for the Bucks, a deadline swap makes more sense for Antetokounmpo and his new team. Again, he’s 31. We don’t know how much longer his prime is going to last. There’s a chance that this, right now, is the best he is ever going to be moving forward. Any team interested in acquiring him would presumably prefer to have him for the 2026 postseason.
And Antetokounmpo will be subject to a six-month extension restriction from the time he is traded. If he is moved now, he can still re-sign before next season begins (he wouldn’t be eligible until October anyway). If he’s moved in June or July, that date moves back with him, exposing him to some risk of getting hurt early next season.
So we’re going to cover possible trade destinations, and we’re going to divide them into two categories. The first three teams will be the teams who are likely eager to make a deal here and now. The next six are teams that probably make more sense in the offseason.
The deadline crowd
1. New York Knicks
The Bucks reportedly want young players and draft picks. The Knicks… have minimal to offer on both fronts. Deuce McBride is underrated and having a great season! Washington’s top-eight protected first-round pick reverts to two valuable second-rounders! The Knicks still have valuable first-round swaps to offer in 2030 and 2032! All of that is well and good. It might not scratch the surface for someone like Giannis.
If New York is going to make this happen, it is going to have to canvass the league for youth and picks in exchange for its veterans. That’s easier said and done. When the Knicks traded for Mikal Bridges in the summer of 2024, five first-round picks for someone who’d never made the All-Star Game was seen as reasonable. Things have changed. We live in the “Trae Young was cap dumped world” now. Basically everyone is generating less value than they would have a few years ago.
Take Karl-Anthony Towns. How much of an appetite is there to pay him super max money for the next two years given his deficiencies on defense and his lackluster shooting this season? The Knicks could probably find a team to offer positive value. It probably wouldn’t be too much of it. Bridges and OG Anunoby would hold more appeal around the league given how badly virtually everyone wants 3-and-D wings, but the Knicks would probably prefer to keep those players for a Giannis-centric roster. Shot in the dark: part of New York’s rumored interest in Jrue Holiday boiled down to acceptance that Bridges and Anunoby may have to be in the Antetokounmpo trade, and New York is seeking out alternative paths to perimeter defense to replace them.
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If Giannis wants the Knicks, he’s probably going to have to stick his thumb on the scale. Maybe, just maybe, he can scare off other suitors by letting them know he’d only re-sign in New York. And maybe, just maybe, the Bucks could talk themselves into a star they could put on billboards as they sort through the wreckage of a post-Giannis future. There are a lot of maybes here. When the star wants a certain team, though, that team always has a reasonable shot.
Something to keep in mind here: the Knicks can do this over the summer, but they’d strongly prefer to do it now. The 2026 playoffs obviously count in that respect, but they also have to consider post-Giannis roster construction. Right now, they’re hard-capped at the second apron. They don’t want to be hard-capped next season, when they have to re-sign Mitchell Robinson and likely want the flexibility to pursue other trades. Aggregating salaries to get Antetokounmpo next summer would create a second-apron hard cap they don’t want to deal with. They’d still do it, but expect the Knicks to do everything in their power to avoid that scenario and get this thing done now.
2. Golden State Warriors
Golden State wants to do this now because, well, how much longer can they make Stephen Curry wait? He turns 38 in March. He’s still one of the 10 best players in the world and he’s still the absolute perfect Antetokounmpo teammate. How much longer will that remain the case? Golden State could feel reasonably confident that a Curry-Antetokounmpo duo would be the single best set of teammates in the 2026 postseason provided both are healthy. Nothing beyond that is guaranteed.
Golden State should hold a fair bit of appeal to Milwaukee as well. The Warriors control most of their future first-round draft capital, only owing a top-20 protected first-round pick to Washington. Controlling Golden State’s picks after Curry retires and Antetokounmpo likely declines should be very appealing.
Things are little tricky because Milwaukee lacks picks in 2027 and 2029, which would be obvious swap right years for Milwaukee to target, but that’s a solvable problem. The cleanest solution would be to go to Washington and grab Oklahoma City’s 2026 first-rounder, likely No. 30 overall, which isn’t very valuable in itself, but would allow the Warriors to dodge the Stepien Rule and give Milwaukee first-round picks in 2026, 2027, 2029 and 2031 along with first-round swaps in 2028, 2030 and 2032. The other possibility would be to give the Bucks picks outright in 2026, 2028, 2030 and 2032 along with a 2031 swap, and then force the Warriors to trade first-round swap rights in 2027 and 2029 to other teams for more assets to give Milwaukee. The Bucks could also nab Jonathan Kuminga in this deal as an upside play, which doesn’t hurt. The matching salary would presumably be Jimmy Butler, useless to Golden State on his torn ACL.
The Curry-Antetokounmpo fit is the easy part. They’d be pairing the player with the most 3-point gravity in the NBA with the player with the most rim gravity, and unlike Damian Lillard, Curry does not need the ball to function, so Antetokounmpo could serve as the functional point guard as he prefers. The question is the rest of the roster. What does Draymond Green do on offense when Antetokounmpo has the ball? How do they balance out this shooting guard-heavy roster with some wing defense? The Warriors might need to make follow-up trades to make this work. But Antetokounmpo could not only be Curry’s perfect teammate, but someone who could keep the franchise afloat after he’s gone. If they can do this, they almost certainly will. I’d consider Golden State’s future draft capital the most valuable option available to Milwaukee during the season.
3. Miami Heat
The Heat are in a tricky but potentially advantageous position. They can’t win a bidding war against some of the teams who might sniff around on Antetokounmpo if this drags into the summer. But they can win a bidding war against the Knicks, and unlike a lot of teams, they’re probably not going to get scared off by the threat that he might not sign an extension. So Miami’s best-case scenario is probably something like what’s playing out right now. They want Antetokounmpo pressing the Bucks to act quickly. They probably don’t mind Antetokounmpo scaring off the wrong sort of suitors. They want to position this as Miami vs. New York. That’s their path to presenting the most appealing offer.
So… how appealing is their offer? Somewhat appealing. They don’t have as much draft capital to trade as Golden State does. They’re out a 2027 first-round pick to Charlotte from the Terry Rozier trade, which also prevents them from trading picks in 2026 and 2028, and as the Bucks don’t have a pick in 2029, swap rights at that point are off of the table. So the draft value, unless another team was looped in to deal with the Stepien problem, would come in 2030, 2031 and 2032. Those are the best years they can offer, but it’s certainly light on volume.
But the Heat do have more player value to offer than the Warriors do led by promising young big man Kel’El Ware and former All-Star Tyler Herro, a Wisconsin native. That only moves the needle for Milwaukee if they view Ware as a possible star down the line. He’s shown a lot of promise. That’s a big leap from where he is now, and by waiting until the offseason, the Heat can offer both the player they draft in 2026 and their 2033 pick. Unless the Bucks are really desperate to move now, this is a move that makes more sense over the summer. But when you factor in pressure from Antetokounmpo’s side and Miami’s fear of other possible suitors, you can bet the Heat will do everything in their power to finish this thing here and now.
The summer suitors
4., 5. & 6. The Spurs, Rockets and Pistons
We’re lumping these three teams together because they’re all in roughly similar situations. All three of them are legitimate 2026 championship contenders with their current roster. All three are so young and so asset-rich that they can afford to operate on whatever timeline they’d like. And all three happen to be deep in the front court already, meaning Antetokounmpo would be more of a luxury than a necessity for them.
The Spurs and Pistons are essentially where the Thunder were in 2024, when Sam Presti told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon to let them “finish our breakfast we start acting like we’re on the cusp of something.” The idea there was that the Thunder needed the year, and the eventual playoff run, to evaluate what they had before deciding how to proceed. That’s what happened. They lost to Dallas. They swapped Josh Giddey for Alex Caruso and signed Isaiah Hartenstein. Then they won the championship. San Antonio and Detroit would probably prefer to operate similarly. Play out this postseason organically, see how they do and evaluate what changes might be needed, and then strike later.
Houston is a bit further ahead of schedule. They at their breakfast against the Warriors last spring and responded with a Kevin Durant trade. That deal was a perfect timeline compromise. It made them good enough to compete for the 2026 title in earnest, but cost them nothing significant from their core. They still have key young players Amen Thompson, Alperen Sengun and Reed Sheppard. They still have their stockpile of future draft picks. They can afford to be picky, straddling the line between win now and win later until the perfect move presents itself. If it never does? They can just supplement this existing core with those incoming future draft picks.
In all three cases, the rosters would require pretty substantial changes to accommodate Antetokounmpo. The Spurs hover around league-average in 3-point attempt rate, but rank 22nd in 3-point percentage. The Rockets and Pistons are both bottom-four in 3-point attempt rate. Antetokounmpo needs optimal spacing to thrive. These teams would have to overhaul their supporting casts and systems to accommodate Giannis. Frankly, any of them would be justified in thinking it’s not worth it. They’re so good and so young that they might not want to fast forward for the sake of a two- or three-year window with Antetokounmpo.
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But we can’t say any of this for certain right now. All three teams will want to see how the postseason plays out. There’s a chance two of these teams meet in the Finals. Maybe something happens in May or June that compels one of these teams to hit the accelerator. That would be the Bucks’ best-case scenario. They’d love to rebuild around those Houston assets. Stephon Castle or Dylan Harper could be their next franchise player. Detroit could blow them away with volume. The first three teams we covered can’t win a bidding war against these teams. It’s just a matter of whether or not they want to join the party.
7. Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers have one tradable first-round pick now. They’ll have three over the summer. That takes them from “not enough to trade for Giannis” to “still not enough to trade for Giannis.” Remember, these aren’t picks from a team like Golden State that’s built around a 38-year-old. Luka Dončić is 26. Assuming they keep him, the Lakers will probably be pretty good through the early 2030s.
Things get more interesting when the name “Austin Reaves” comes up. Now, a midseason trade for Reaves would be foolish on Milwaukee’s part regardless of the pick situation. Reaves is a free agent this offseason. He’s virtually unextendable given his low cap figure for this season. That means the Bucks would be trading for someone who could leave for nothing in a few months. That’s not tenable. Now, if we get to the summer, and Reaves is amenable to a sign-and-trade to the Bucks? That might get Milwaukee’s attention.
But that would be a huge risk on the Lakers’ part. If you approach Reaves and ask if he’d accept a sign-and-trade to Milwaukee, you’re signaling that you view him as a trade chip, not a foundational piece. At which point, he may decide, “you know what? I don’t want to risk getting shipped somewhere I don’t like in six months, I’d rather just take a huge offer whichever of many younger teams with cap space this summer I find most appealing.” That’s a game the Lakers probably don’t want to play. Their best bet is to just re-sign Reaves with the intention of keeping him.
So why are the Lakers listed here at all? Because they’re the boogeyman. They’re the team with possible 2027 cap space that can sign Antetokounmpo outright if he gets to free agency then. There is a world in which the Lakers have the money offer Antetokounmpo a max while keeping Dončić and Reaves, setting up a monster trio in Los Angeles. That is probably the scenario the Lakers are playing for here. Let the trade saga play itself out. Hope Antetokounmpo finds himself dealt somewhere that he won’t re-sign. And then swipe him as a 2027 free agent. Maybe there’s a way they could leverage that status to trade for him at a reduced price this summer, but more likely, this is their path to securing Antetokounmpo. It’s narrow, but it exists.
8. Orlando Magic
There are a few brewing problems in Orlando. The first is the one that everybody talks about. It really doesn’t seem like the Paolo Banchero-Franz Wagner partnership is working. Orlando has slipped to No. 8 in the Eastern Conference despite trading a mountain of picks for Desmond Bane, whose shooting hasn’t addressed the issue of having two on-ball forwards who aren’t consistent shooters themselves. Maybe more creative offensive coaching is needed. Are the Magic are willing to take more drastic steps here?
Then there’s the quieter but just as consequential financial issues plaguing the Magic. Orlando just gave Banchero a max rookie extension. Wagner got one a year earlier. Bane got one from Memphis before the trade. Jalen Suggs was paid handsomely in the summer of 2024 as well. Having four very expensive players might not be tenable in 2026… and now, Anthony Black is threatening to make it five. He’s been so good for a struggling Magic team this season that he’s going to command a hefty rookie extension this offseason as well. You cannot justify paying five players substantial sums of money when the team is this average. Orlando is already slated to top the second apron for next season, and that’s before a new Black deal would kick in.
One possible solution to both problems? Consolidation. Turn a few of those big contracts into one attached to a better player. So here’s the trade: Banchero and either Black or Suggs for Antetokounmpo. Milwaukee gets a recent No. 1 overall pick who has made an All-Star Game as a new franchise player to build around. Orlando shuffles its books, ducks the Banchero-Wagner questions by trading one of them before external pressure forces them to do so at a reduced price and gets one of the best players in the league. Such a trade isn’t possible during the season, with Banchero still on his rookie deal. When his cap figure jumps in the offseason, it’s doable.
Orlando has a lot of the tools an Antetokounmpo team would need. Wendell Carter is a center who can shoot. Those are rare. Either Suggs or Black could provide the backcourt defense Jrue Holiday once gave him, and Bane is the sharpshooter he needs. You’d have to hope Wagner could consistently hit shots, but he’s largely done so this season, and his secondary playmaking would go a long way here. The Magic would still be a defensive menace, but they’d have an MVP candidate to build around offensively.
Would Antetokounmpo commit to staying in Orlando? That’s the probable holdup. The Magic would also have to be willing to turn what could be a five- to seven-year runway into a much shorter one. Banchero is only 23. Would the Magic really give up the rest of his career just for this short-term run? They’d have to believe the partnership with Wagner is unfixable, and they’d have to genuinely think they could win the title with Antetokounmpo. If both conditions are met, it certainly makes sense for the Bucks.
9. Atlanta Hawks
The Spurs, Rockets and Pistons need playoff clarity. The Hawks need lottery clarity. If the first-round pick they’re getting from either the Bucks or the Pelicans lands in the top three, there’s no conversation here. Darryn Peterson, A.J. Dybansta and Cam Boozer are all possible franchise players and trading any of them for any player in his 30s would be downright irresponsible. Maybe the Hawks could construct a trade without giving up that young star, but why would you give away assets on that player’s timeline for a player more than a decade older than him?
If the Hawks fall outside of the top three, though, this becomes a conversation. That’s especially true since, amazingly, 2026 isn’t even the only combined Bucks-Pelicans pick Atlanta has to trade. In 2027, the Hawks are set to get the lesser pick between the Bucks and Pelicans, who both figure to be bad, assuming they don’t both land in the bottom four. Say the Hawks built a package around those two picks, Zaccharie Risacher and Dyson Daniels, whose shooting woes would make a partnership with Antetokounmpo untenable.
That would give Atlanta a core of Antetokounmpo, Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, probably good enough to win the East with some follow-up moves to add shooting and guards. Maybe the Hawks could re-sign Kristaps Porziņģis to that effort. But the concept of a Johnson-Antetokounmpo front court would terrify smaller opponents.
Would the Hawks dangle Johnson in such an offer? Despite Rich Paul’s suggestions that they should, doing so wouldn’t really make sense. Is the jump from All-Star to MVP candidate really worth the seven-year age gap? Probably not. If this trade can be done with picks that don’t include a top-three 2026 selection? Go for it. If not, the Hawks just aren’t a fit. But until the Hawks know where that 2026 pick lands, they shouldn’t take any substantial risks.