Is Giannis getting traded to the KNICKS?! 😱 ‘THIS is what it will come down to!’ – Windy | NBA Today

Is Giannis getting traded to the KNICKS?! 😱 ‘THIS is what it will come down to!’ – Windy | NBA Today

Giannis Attento made one thing clear at media day before the season. He said, “I want to be on a team that allows me and gives me a chance to win a championship.” That’s a direct quote. And then a few days later, our Sham Sharan reported that there was only one team that Giannis desired to play for outside of Milwaukee, and that’s the Knicks. But despite engaging in trade talks over the summer, the perceived trade window, it was closed. But one thing was clear to everyone within the organization. The two-time MVP would use the first quarter of the season to take stock in how competitive the Bucks can be. Well, Milwaukee has lost eight of their last nine games and are just as close to being last place in the East as they are to being a top four seed. Which brings us to breaking news as we say hello to our senior insider Sham Shirana. Shams, what is developing here outside of Milwaukee? Malikica, sources tell me that Giannis Andmpo and his agent Alex Saratas have started open conversations that are active right now with the Milwaukee Bucks about the realities of whether his future is best staying in Milwaukee or the realities of moving on elsewhere. And my understanding is a resolution to this and whether this could lead to a trade request is expected in the coming weeks. So there’s a timeline there. As you said, 9 and3 overall. They just lost a 16-point lead to the Washington Wizards on Monday. And I’m told Jans Doupo has been frustrated over the recent losing, but so have John Horse, the general manager, Doc Rivers, the head coach. There’s been a lot of frustration within that Bucks organization over the losing and also a sense of tension around the locker room about what this means for Giannis and Dukmpo. had one source even tell me and describe the situation as the writing on the wall for what’s to come with Giannis and to Dumpo. He was sold potentially on a championship vision by John Horse and Doc Rivers returned recommitted to this team. But this is a situation where this Bucks organization could be faced with serious consequences depending on how the season continues to play out. Okay, so the writing is on the wall here for how this could go if the Milwaukee Bucks are not able to make some sort of drastic change now that we’re at this quarter mark of the season. Shams, thank you so much for that insight. I’d like to welcome in Jana, Danny Green. In some ways, this feels like an inevitability, Danny, but but I’m curious your reaction to the news that now we are marching towards the point that Giannis could not be on the Milwaukee Bucks. Are we shocked? I’m I’m not shocked. I don’t think anybody is shocked. We’ve seen him again. I didn’t think he’d be one of those guys to take down Instagram posts, but he’s shown signs in the past, even before yesterday, that he’s been frustrated and that it was time for him, that he wanted to be out. His family moved back to Greece. Um, they should have probably looked at this and entertained this this past summer. They tried to double down, sign Miles Turner, they got rid of Dame. This was a lot of bad moves and right now what we expected is coming to a head. We thought it would happen earlier. They played well earlier, but right now him being out, having those injuries, having that little groin situation, and Ryan Rollins being his next best player is showing like we can’t I can’t win with this. I can’t do anything with this, and he’s he’s just very frustrated as a superstar player and he, you know, he wants a fresh start somewhere else. Yeah, I know it’s unfortunate as someone who probably wanted to be there as long as possible, but what I think about is that I’m not surprised because they’ve exhausted all options in my opinion. They not only emptied the cabinet, they emptied the kitchen, and on top of it, for their future, they mortgaged their house. So what else is left for them to sort of move whether it is with assets or just on the team to maintain this expectation and vision that they collaborated on to win a championship. But like if this is the case what a team a championship team would be getting is someone over the last three years that averaged 30 and 10 and five on 60% shooting. It would be huge a huge move. Right. So, since we’re talking about ways in which the Milwaukee Bucks still, again, Shams is reporting that we’re inching closer to what has felt like a situation that’s going to come to a head at some point, whether it’s during the season or in the summer. Uh, we’re asking what it is the Milwaukee Bucks can do to salvage this, if anything. And that seems like a question for our front office insider, Bobby Mark. So, let’s bring in Bobby now. Bobby, what options here does Milwaukee have? The Marks. Yeah. Yeah, Malikica, they’re running out of options here. I think once we get to December 15th, most of their roster if if most of the players are eligible to be traded. So you’re looking at can a combination of Kyle Kosma and Bobby Poris get you something out in the marketplace here? Two players that make a combined $37 million. Remember they’ve got one first round pick to move in a deal. One in either 2031 or 2032. This is a roster that is topheavy in contracts unless you’re going to move off Miles Turner who’s trade eligible starting on December 15th. So from a purely looking at it from Milwaukey’s perspective, Malikica, there’s not much left there to go out and move. Something we do know about John Horse, the Milwaukee Bucks general manager though is if there is a move to be made, whether it is stretching Damen Lillard’s contract, he has gotten crafty in order to try to to to maintain this roster at a championship level without Giannis, but they’re running out of options. as we say hello to our senior insider Brian Winhorse. Brian, if they’re not able to get to that point, which it seems increasingly likely that the Bucks will not, who’s picking up the phone and calling the Bucks for Giannis here? It won’t be that way. It’ll be Giannis instructing the Bucks where he wants to be traded and then the Bucks trying to make the best possible deal with that team. And this already happened. Shams reported this a couple of months ago. you you can put out whatever verbiage you want around it about whether he requested it or asked for it or hinted at it, but he basically said, “I want to be a Nick. Can you make me a Nick?” And they had discussions for some period of days and that those tra those talks didn’t progress and so they dropped it and he reported to camp and tried to focus on it. The big difference between Giannis now and in previous years is that in previous years the Bucks roster was built out better to handle him and support him. The last two years he’s missed 24 games. In those games, they’re 12- 12 and they won 49 and 48 games those two seasons. They were really good when Giannis was out there and when he wasn’t, they held held the line. This year, they’re 1 and5 when he doesn’t play. It’s really one and six cuz he left one game in the first quarter, they lost it. When he’s been on the court, they’ve been 500. This team is significantly below where it’s been. Giannis is just following up on actions he’s already set in motion. They’ve lost eight of their last nine games. And of course, as you can see, Giannis hasn’t always been available this season. He’s had some knick-knack injuries here. What happened that made that that made Giannis say, “Okay, I I want to start the season and stay in Milwaukee and what’s changing now?” Look, essentially, there were failed trade talks in August. There was a multi-week exclusive negotiating window for the New York Knicks, as it was described to me on a potential Jon Dumpo trade. They were aware, the Bucks were aware, the parties that needed to know were aware that Jansen Dmpo, if there was a team outside of Milwaukee, he wanted to play for the Knicks. No deal happened. And John Horse, the bucks general manager who has creatively made time and time again, Drew Holiday in 2020, Damen Lillard in 2023, then the Miles Turner acquisition, he has creatively found ways to maneuver and make this team better. He had done it again. And he, Doc Rivers, they had sold Giannis and Dukmpo and ownership on a championship contending team. And the result, this is a resultsbased business, a resultsbased situation. Jaso has made it clear he wants winning and so the results have spoken for themselves and if they keep trending this way this is just the start for even more hard conversations to come and also like I keep saying the inevitable writing on the wall as one source told me today I think that you point out an important characteristic Giannis all of us know him as a winner that has been a driving force for him since he came into the NBA but he is the the third longest player to sit with any current franchise, trailing only Steph Curry and Draymond Green. He’s been with the Milwaukee Bucks since 2013, 2014. And so what you don’t expect is the Milwaukee Bucks to move on from from a player like this in a market like Milwaukee easily. So Brian, what do you expect the next several weeks or even months to look like as we march toward the February 5th trade deadline? Yeah. So, this is what’s going to come down to is whether Giannis instructs the Bucks to re-engage the Knicks or not, or if he if he’s if he moves into the direction he wants to trade, would he widen that list? The thing is, the Knicks were not in the best position to trade for Giannis in August because they had just extended Male Bridges and he wasn’t able to be traded. Um, it was a strange time that that Giannis would approach the Bucks about that situation. it would be different after December 15th when more players are available to be traded. The Knicks really believe in this roster. When they when they engaged in those talks, they were they thought this team could potentially win the Eastern Conference and challenge the the Western Conference champion, whether it’s the Thunder, whomever. I’m not so sure the Knicks are on the same page. So, the Knicks, I’m sure, when this news reaches the Knicks, the Knicks internally are going to have to have discussions about what they offered in the summer and whether they’re going to be willing to change their offer if the phone rings again coming from Milwaukee. And if you’re a couple other teams that you may think would have interest in Giannis, you’re having meetings in the next 12 to 24 hours to figure out what your offer might be if Giannis says he would be interested in your team. Well, if you’re the New York Knicks and those conversations hadn’t reached you before 12 o’clock Pacific today, they’ve certainly reached you now that our show’s been on air. And if you’re a player for the Milwaukee Bucks, ESPN’s on every TV and all the bars and in the locker room and all these different places. If you’re walking past the TV right now and you’re a Milwaukee Bucks player and you’re seeing our show right now, are you hoping that this is something that’s resolved quickly so they can move on either way or are you just hoping that eventually this will sort itself so that Giannis is is a buck for life? Yeah, I mean I’ve been a part of the situation multiple times in Philly with Ben Simmons, James Harden. I’ve been in San Antonio and Kawawaii traits. You just hope that this is not a distraction for a long period of time, whether it’s good or bad. You just want it to be settled and over with so you don’t have to answer questions for other guys that are not yourself and looming around your whole season and your whole group and atmosphere and locker room about this scenario. So yeah, you just kind of want to get it done and over with as soon as possible, but you hope that the best situation happens for you and your group. Uh, but that may not happen. But I’m sure they’re trying to find ways to keep Giannis in house. But based on how this has gone so far and what Shams is saying, there have been incremental changes. It’s not necessarily something that we expect to be resolved in the next couple of days, but we’ll certainly keep following it over the next couple of weeks. [Music]

Brian Windhorst, Vincent Goodwill and Shams Charania join Malika Andrews on NBA Today to react to the Milwaukee Bucks having conversations with Giannis Antetokounmpo about his future.

0:00 Giannis trade talks
1:10 Shams Charania joins!
2:30 Giannis’ future
5:11 Brian Windhorst weighs in

✔️ Subscribe to ESPN Unlimited: https://plus.espn.com/

#ESPN