Giannis Antetokounmpo wants out of Milwaukee. Five months ago, if he were going to end his Bucks tenure, he only wanted to play for the Knicks.
But the situation has worsened. The Bucks, who don’t own their own pick in this year’s NBA Draft, are 12th in the Eastern Conference sitting nine games below-.500. And Antetokounmpo, who has previously declared conditional loyalty to the franchise that drafted him 15th overall in 2013, is ready for a new start.
It’s unclear if The Greek Freak remains solely-focused on landing with the Knicks, and that could be the only way New York sees Antetokounmpo ever suit up in orange and blue. Because in an open market, the Knicks’ best trade package doesn’t quite stand out from the field, which means unless Antetokounmpo says “only trade me to the Knicks,” the Bucks would be settling for an OK offer when there are potential franchise-altering packages available on the market.
Antetokounmpo, of course, wields the power in this situation. He has one year worth $58 million left on his contract after this season before he can opt out and become a free agent in the summer of 2027. A team paying the hefty price in a trade for the two-time league Most Valuable Player of the Year will want assurances that Antetokounmpo will commit long-term, the kind of assurances he won’t give if the circumstances don’t meet his approval.
But if that’s not the case — if Antetokounmpo isn’t hellbent on taking his talents to the media capital of the world — if he only wants to be in a place that can better position him to compete for a title (or provide a better quality of life than he’s been able to establish in Milwaukee), a number of teams can string together competitive offers the likes of which the Knicks can’t comfortably match.
Take the San Antonio Spurs, for example, who can make Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle untouchable and offer the Bucks any combination of Dylan Harper, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson and Carter Bryant, all young players 26 or younger including two who have yet to turn 21. The Spurs also have four first-round picks they can trade in 2026, 2028, 2030 and 2032.
That’s the kind of offer a team like Milwaukee could be more inclined to accept, a bundle of promising young prospects and attempts to find another generational talent through the draft.
The Knicks, unfortunately, famously traded five first-round picks for Mikal Bridges two summers ago. Their best offer looks like some variation of Karl-Anthony Towns, who virtually matches Antetokounmpo’s salary, Miles McBride (a starter-level player on an average annual salary of less than $4 million), and whatever picks the Knicks can get if they choose to sell off on Bridges or OG Anunoby to coax the Bucks into making a deal. (The Knicks, for example, can trade Bridges to Portland in a deal where the Trail Blazers send the Bucks back their draft capital and send Jrue Holiday to New York.)
Even still, there is a strong argument to be made a team like the Cleveland Cavaliers could make a better offer simply using Darius Garland and Evan Mobley as the foundation of a framework for a deal. The Detroit Pistons could give the Bucks a starter kit of Tobias Harris and young players Ausar Thompson and Jaden Ivey. The Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors could conspire together on a deal that sends the injured Jimmy Butler, Austin Reaves and Jonathan Kuminga to the Bucks, Giannis to the Lakers with Luka Doncic, and LeBron James headed out on a farewell tour with Stephen Curry and Draymond Green in the Bay Area.
All of these deals feature star-level young players or significant draft assets headed to Milwaukee. Meanwhile, Towns turned 30 in November. Bridges is a good player but not one who will alter the trajectory of a rebuilding franchise. McBride is a good player capable of taking another leap and will soon be up for a significant pay raise. And the Knicks don’t have any first-round picks they can trade except the conditional pick from the Washington Wizards, which is most likely to convey as a pair of second-rounders in 2026 and 2027.
The Knicks might not have a top-five offer for Antetokounmpo on a fair and open trade market. The Miami Heat can build an offer around 26-year-old Tyler Herro, any of their recently drafted young players (Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Nikola Topic) and draft picks. The Houston Rockets could gut their young core to pair Antetokounmpo with Kevin Durant. Even the Orlando Magic are capable of entering the chat if they’re willing to part ways with Paolo Banchero in the process.
The Knicks don’t have the kind of young players or draft assets capable of shutting out the rest of the market. They do, however, have New York City, the city that never sleeps, the mecca of basketball and the best home-court advantage on the planet as a selling point to a superstar who wants out — but needs to make it clear he wants to play in New York, and only New York, if the Bucks are going to cave and take a deal that’s not extracting maximum value for one of the best, suddenly-available players of this generation.
