Spurs vs. Thunder: What’s the best Giannis Antetokounmpo trade destination from Bucks?

Spurs vs. Thunder: What’s the best Giannis Antetokounmpo trade destination from Bucks?

Would you rather see the Spurs split up their young core in depth for Giannis or trade Sohan Olen three or four firsts for Trey Murphy if it takes that much? Man, three or four first for Trey Murphy would be pretty wild. I uh I keep thinking about things in the context of Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City isn’t going anywhere. You have to find a way to compete with them. They’re going to get another lottery pick this year. CET is going to keep dramatically improving year-over-year. So is Jaylen Williams. Sheay has has shown another leap basically marginally across the board in his game this season. This season AJ Mitchell has popped. They have other first round picks that have gotten hurt that’ll be rejoining the team at some point in the future. Kase Wallace is going to continue to get better. The Thunder aren’t going anywhere. This is an arms race now. You have to call on Giannis. Now I’m not saying like I personally hope that Giannis stays out in the East. We talked about that yesterday. I think it’s better for the conference balance in the NBA. And I don’t think it’s good to have all four of your top tier superstars and all four of your top tier contenders all out in the Western Conference. I don’t I don’t think that that and then you know Luca and the Lakers are probably that like fifth team and like you just don’t want all of those teams all stacked up in one conference, right? But San Antonio shouldn’t care about that. They should care about how they’re trying to compete with the Oklahoma City Thunder at the top of the conference. And if you make a deal for Giannis, you can get it done with something like Harrison Barnes and Kell Johnson and either of your two young guards, Dylan Harper or Steph Castle, just one of them and some draft compensation. If you do that, your starting lineup becomes De’Aran Fox, Devin Vel, Julian Champy, Giannis Antennako, and Victor Webmanyama. That is a frightening combination of a duo that’s impossible to score on at the rim and Giannis and WBY and super athletes on the perimeter. Dire Fox shooting the three super well this year. Devin Vel, Julian Champagne, traditional shooters. That’s shooting and two-way talent on the perimeter surrounding two of the very best front court players literally in the history of the league for Giannis and soon to be for Victor Wmanyama. And you don’t sacrifice much in depth. You still have Steph Castle off the bench. You still have Luke Cornet off the bench. You still have Jeremy Sohan off the bench. That’s probably the best top eight in the entire NBA, even over a team like OKC. And you’d still have flexibility to make moves and pivot off of that core if you need to. There’s a depth there of of like literally three starting caliber awesome guards there. You could flip one at some point in the future if you needed to. Say Steph Castle makes a leap and you pivot off of De’Aran Fox or whatever it is. It’s not like you’re tying yourself into Giannis and sacrificing your entire future. It’s a no-brainer. You make the call. Maybe you get outbid. Maybe Orlando ends up jumping in. Maybe Atlanta ends up jumping in. May maybe Oklahoma City ends up jumping in. Who knows? But I think you make the call because you’re the one team that presents a real physical dynamic that OKC could struggle with. And that’s Giannis and Wemby completely shutting down the rim and having the type of big athletic guards that can make things a little bit tougher on OKC’s pull-up jump shooters. It’s an arms race. OKC is a juggernaut and you’re one of the few teams positioned well enough to actually compete with them in the coming years. I think it’s something you have to consider. What do you think will happen if OKC approaches the Bucks and offers JDub plus salary filler probably Hartinstein with picks for Giannis? For the record, I don’t think Sam Prey will ever do something like that, but I think it’s the best return that the Bucks can get on Giannis and instantly makes OKC the favorites to win the title to potentially being more scary than the 2017 Warriors. Another question, you think if a move like that was on the table, should Adam Silver stop it to straight up say no to this trade because it would make the league so unfair? So, here’s the thing. I agree with you that if the Thunder actually wanted Giannis, they could have him. They’ve got all the draft picks. They’ve got all the talented young players. They could certainly make something like that happen. It’s just an unnecessary risk for OKC. So, think of it this way. You’ve already made yourself as currently constructed a substantial championship favorite. We’ll see how things go over the next month. There’s a lot of basketball games to be played and OKC definitely has a tougher December schedule. But at some point in the next month, if things stay the same in our next contender rankings, I’m going to put OKC in a tier by themselves at the top of the league without any trade. Giannis has become a bit injuryprone in recent years. He’s hurt again, has a calf injury, he’s missed a bunch of playoff games over the course of the last few years. So you could, yes, increase your championship odds this season, but also have a higher risk for some sort of derailing injury where if you don’t have JDub and you don’t have a Giannis and you don’t have an Isaiah Hartinstein, then you could run into an issue where you become more beatable this season. Right now, as currently constructed, they might not be as much of a favorite as they would be if they made a Giannis trade, but I think they’re more resilient to injuries right now because they’re younger. They’re they’re built in a way to where even if JDub is out, they can handle u you know large chunks of the regular season. I just think for OKC it’s an unnecessary risk for them. So I’d be stunned if they made a Giannis trade.

Jason answers mailbag questions about Giannis Antetokounmpo trade destinations from the Milwaukee Bucks and compares two of the more fun options, joining Victor Wembanyama on the San Antonio Spurs and joining Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on the Oklahoma City Thunder.

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