Arguably the biggest storyline of the NBA offseason was the seemingly uncertain future ofBucks superstarGiannis Antetokounmpo, who reportedly flirted with the idea of leaving Milwaukee, resulting inbrief trade talks with New York, which is said to be his preferred destination if he were to ask to be moved.
When asked about that ESPN report, Antetokounmpoexpressed confidence in the Bucks’ revamped roster and made it clear he’s not seeking a change of scenery at this point, but stopped short of stating that he’s committed to Milwaukee for the long term.
AsJamal Collier of ESPN writes, the Bucks insist they’re on the same page with the two-time MVP, and their bold offseason moves were reflective of their desire to keep Antetokounmpo happy. While people around the league were critical of the decision to waive and stretchDamian Lillard‘s contract in order to signMyles Turner in free agency, team sources tell Collier the Bucks were concerned about potentially wasting a year of Antetokounmpo’s prime.
“The biggest misconception is that this was a panic move,” a team source told ESPN. “It wasn’t. It was a basketball decision. Dame on the other end of it, you’re not sure what that was going to look like. Meanwhile, Myles is a perfect fit. We want to win here.”
Antetokounmpo is technically under contract through 2027/28, but that final season is a player option. The 30-year-old forward will be extension-eligible next summer, Collier notes, and there’s an expectation that he will continue to push management to be as aggressive as possible.
“Always got to hold ownership’s feet to the fire,” a source close to Antetokounmpo told ESPN.
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Having not agreed to terms with centerJalen Duren or guardJaden Ivey ahead of Monday’s deadline for rookie scale extensions, thePistons now have an eventful offseason on tap for 2026, writesOmari Sankofa II of The Detroit Free Press (subscription required).
As Sankofa notes, besides entering restricted free agency with Duren and Ivey, Detroit will also have to deal withTobias Harris‘ unrestricted free agency — the veteran forward won’t become extension-eligible prior to reaching the open market. Additionally, 2023 lottery pickAusar Thompson will become eligible for a rookie scale extension with his own next July, so the team may be negotiating with him at the same time as it tries to resolve Duren’s and Ivey’s contract situations.
While Duren and Ivey should do very well for themselves in free agency if they have strong seasons in 2025/26, Thompson has the tools to earn the most lucrative contract of the trio if he has a breakout year after a healthy offseason. TeammateCade Cunningham is confident about Thompson’s chances to have a big third season, asHunter Patterson of The Athletic details.
“Ausar had a great summer,”Cunningham said in September. “I think he’s really going to make a lot of noise this year. He’s going to wake a lot of people up in a loud way.”
“I don’t think about (having a breakout season), but if my mentality is where I want it to be every single game, then I should be able to do that,” Thompson said.
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TheBucks got their first glimpse of theGiannis Antetokounmpo–Myles Turner pairing on Sunday, and what they saw in just over five minutes should excite them, saysEric Nehm of The Athletic. Despite Antetokounmpo’s somewhat pedestrian box score numbers, his presence opened up the floor for the team’s shooters, Nehm writes. Most importantly, Turner’s instincts, not only as a spacer but also as a cutter, worked perfectly alongside Antetokounmpo’s scoring gravity, creating wide-open looks for the Bucks’ guards.
“The most important thing about him is that he sacrifices,” Antetokounmpo said. “At times, he knows that he’s not going to get the ball and he’s going to create the open shot for his teammate.”
While the on-court stint may have been over quickly, Nehm feels it’s indicative of why pursuing Turner was the right choice for a team featuring Antetokounmpo. So far, the Bucks’ star seems to agree.
“It’s fun playing with him. Makes the game easier for me,” Antetokounmpo said. “I think I’ll try to make the game easier for him. When I draw a lot of attention, I think he’s gonna be able to create a lot of open shots … So he just makes the game easier not just for me, for the whole team.”
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Tim Bontemps of ESPN ranks the core trios of every NBA team based on their current and future value. Unsurprisingly,Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,Jalen Williams andChet Holmgren of the defending championThunder sit atop Bontemps’ tiered list, followed by theNuggets trio ofNikola Jokic,Jamal Murray andAaron Gordon.
Bontemps’ final tier (“rebuilding”) is comprised of theNets (Nic Claxton,Egor Demin,Nolan Traore),Trail Blazers (Toumani Camara,Donovan Clingan,Shaedon Sharpe),Jazz (Ace Bailey,Walter Clayton,Lauri Markkanen), andWizards (Bilal Coulibaly,Tre Johnson,Alex Sarr).
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After speaking in more general termslast month about the possibility of suiting up for a team in the EuroLeague before retiring as a player,Bucks superstarGiannis Antetokounmpo stated more plainly during an appearance on a Greek late-night talk show calledThe 2night Show that he’d like to finish his career in his home country.
“I’m 30 years old,”Antetokounmpo said, perBasketNews. “I can play in the NBA until I’m 36, 38. I’d like to end my career in a Greek team, why not? I don’t want to live in the United States. As soon as I leave the NBA, I want to return to Greece. I could end my career here, whether this team is called Filathlitikos, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, or Aris, I’m talking about all the teams now.”
It’s not uncommon for NBA players – especially ones who were born overseas – to spend the twilight years of their careers in Europe. However, it’s a much rarer occurrence for a player of Antetokounmpo’s caliber.
Still, it’s worth noting that Antetokounmpo played for Filathlitikos from 2011-13 before being drafted and that he has long made it a priority to represent Greece in international competitions.Last month, he referred to winning a EuroBasket bronze medal this summer with the Greek national team as his “greatest accomplishment” as an athlete, despite his NBA championship and two NBA MVP awards.
Whether Antetokounmpo eventually plays in Greece remains to be seen, but his NBA future over the next few yearscould be determined in large part by how the Bucks’ 2025/26 season plays out.
Although the star forward has repeatedly expressed a desire to win another championship in Milwaukee,his comments have also strongly suggested that competing for another championship is a greater priority than spending his entire career as a Buck. If Milwaukee’s season ends early again next spring following three consecutive first-round exits in 2023, 2024, and 2025, Giannis will likely weigh his options more seriously as he prepares to enter a potential contract year.
Karl-Anthony Towns andMitchell Robinson have both started in theKnicks‘ first three preseason games, and new head coachMike Brown seems to like the idea of using the two big men together, writesZach Braziller of The New York Post. It’s an option thatTom Thibodeau rarely had last season because Robinson was recovering from ankle surgery and was only available for 17 games. Their time together was mostly limited to the playoffs, and Braziller notes that the Knicks outscored opponents by 4.4 points per 100 possessions with the double-big lineup.
“The length on the floor is just unbelievable, when you’re playing KAT at the 4, playingOG (Anunoby) at the 3,Mikal (Bridges) at the 2,”Brown said. “That’s a big, long team, with a lot of interchangeable parts. And then offensively, not just for KAT, but for the rest of the group, it just gives you a different look. You’d think that group should be able to offensive rebound at a high level, which is one of our staples.”
Braziller points out that Robinson was very effective once he was able to begin playing last season, especially in the playoffs where he averaged 4.7 points and 7.1 rebounds per game while posting a +2.7 net rating. Brown believes Robinson can adapt to his up-tempo system, and Braziller states that the seven-footer engaged in an intense conditioning program during the summer to prepare himself.
“First of all, he’s a great runner. Not a good runner, a great runner,”Brown said. “And he’s got to — like all of us — play at this pace, especially all the time. We don’t wanna do it most of the time, we wanna do it all the time. Having said that, you know Mitch is a vertical threat. I’m just guessing off the top of my head. He might be the best vertical threat I’ve been around.”
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IfGiannis Antetokounmpo is ever traded, it’s more likely to happen during the offseason, Marc Stein of The Stein Line states in his latestSubstack column (subscription required). That’s the conclusion Stein reaches after listening to the chatter out of Milwaukee since it was revealed last week that theBucks andKnicks hadtrade discussions regarding the Greek superstar during the summer.
Stein cites Antetokounmpo’s response when asked about the rumor, saying that he’s happy in Milwaukee now but could reconsider his stance in“six, seven months.” He also said the idea of forcing a trade is “temptation,” adding that it “starts when the season ends (and lasts) until the season begins.”
Given that background, Stein believes this might be a “make-or-break” season regarding Antetokounmpo’s future with the Bucks. The front office took a huge gamble over the summer, waiving and stretchingDamian Lillard‘s contract to create enough cap space to signMyles Turner away from Indiana. However, the rest of the roster is virtually the same as it was when the team finished 48-34 last season and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Antetokounmpo has repeatedly expressed his desire to compete for another NBA title and seems likely to revisit the idea of changing teams if Milwaukee can’t make progress toward that goal.
Antetokounmpo’s contract runs through 2026/27, with a $62.8MM player option for the following season. Stein points out that he’s about to enter the first season of a three-year, $175MM extension he agreed to shortly after the Bucks traded forDamian Lillard in 2023.
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Nets ownerJoe Tsai raised some eyebrows bystating during a recent panel appearance that his team is prioritizing a good draft pick in 2026 and that, as a result,“You can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season.”Asked on Sunday about that remark, head coachJordi Fernandez deftly put a positive spin on it,tweets Brian Lewis of The New York Post.
“He says he wants a good draft pick because no matter where we pick, our front office is so good we’re going to pick a very good player,”Fernandez said.“… So whatever we pick, that’s why he’s excited, because we’re going to pick right.”
Despite Fernandez’s spin, the general consensus is that it will be a challenging season for the Nets, who are incorporating five rookies and traded away second-leading scorerCameron Johnson over the summer. Still, it’s worth noting that Fernandez’s team outperformed expectations last season by winning 26 games after beingwidely viewed as the NBA’s worst team entering the year.
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When theKnicks andBucks discussed the possibility of aGiannis Antetokounmpo trade in August, New York madeJalen Brunson “untouchable,” team sources tellSam Amick of The Athletic.
The news comes as no surprise, given that the goal of an Antetokounmpo trade for the Knicks would be to pair him with Brunson, not have him replace the star point guard.
With Brunson off limits andMikal Bridges not eligible to be moved at that time due to his recently signed extension, it stands to reason thatKarl-Anthony Towns,OG Anunoby, andMitchell Robinson were likely among the players discussed by the two sides, Amick writes.
ESPN’s Shams Charaniareported earlier this week that the Knicks and Bucks spoke about Antetokounmpo over the summer after the star forward expressed some concerns about his team’s championship upside and conveyed that New York would be the only team he’d be interested in if he were to leave Milwaukee.
However, Charania stressed that those discussions didn’t gain any traction, with the Bucks making it clear they wanted to hang onto the two-time MVP and New York not making a compelling enough pitch to force them to reconsider that stance.
The Knicks have already traded away several future first-round picks, so any offer they made for a star like Antetokounmpo would have to be player-heavy in terms of value. And even if the Bucks had interest in some of those players, New York has concerns about the potential roster imbalance that sort of blockbuster trade would create, according to Amick.
While subsequent reports, including this one from The Athletic, have confirmed that those trade talks generated no momentum, Amick says this development was definitely “not nothing.” He refers to it as “nothing short of an escalation,” since it’s the strongest signal yet that Antetokounmpo is considering options outside of Milwaukee.
[RELATED:Bucks’ Antetokounmpo, Rivers Address Giannis Trade Rumors]
Although the Knicks were the only team to have a conversation with the Bucks about Giannis this offseason, many more teams around the league would be ready to pursue him if he were ever to be made available, according to Amick, who suggests that the 30-year-old’s future in Milwaukee could be largely determined by what happens this coming season. Giannis only has one more guaranteed year on his contract beyond 2025/26, with a player option for ’27/28.
In a subscriber-only mailbag,Stefan Bondy of The New York Post confirms theKnicks andBucksdiscussed a trade involving two-time MVPGiannis Antetokounmpo this summer, but cautions those negotiations went “nowhere productive” beyond revealing the Greek superstar would prefer to play in New York if he ever leaves Milwaukee.
According to Bondy, the Knicks don’t have a realistic pathway to acquire Antetokounmpo unless the 30-year-old specifically demands a trade to New York. And even if Milwaukee struggles this season, there’s no indication that Antetokounmpo would go that route.
Unless the Knicks would be willing to tradeJalen Brunson in a possible multi-team construct, they simply lack the draft assets to compete with other teams in a potential bidding war, Bondy explains.
While it’s a positive development that Antetokounmpo reportedly wants to play for the Knicks after they have been spurned by other stars in the past, the situation could be a distraction if New York gets off to a slow start, Bondy writes. It will also be an important “measuring stick” for the current front office regime, according to Bondy, who points out that the Knicks spent most of their previous draft capital to trade forMikal Bridges— a move that may or may not pay off in the long run.
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