Should the Trail Blazers Trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo?

No, the Blazers should not trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Portland Trail Blazers are not one player away from being title favorites, even if that player is Giannis.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are on pace to be the best NBA team of all time. Even if Portland were to add Giannis to its roster, the Thunder’s best player would be better than the Blazers’. So would their second-best player, as well as their third-best player — all the way down to the end of the bench.

Adding Giannis would catapult Portland into the upper-Western-Conference discussions, sure. But that theoretical squad would be dependent on a roster of young players with zero playoff experience, a Damian Lillard who is coming off an Achilles tear, and a Jrue Holiday who has played in half of the Blazers’ 22 games this season.

And that’s ignoring the fact that to make the trade feasible, the Blazers would have to give up Jerami Grant, at least one of their young, budding prospects, and likely one other role player. That thins out Portland’s depth drastically.

The Blazers have far too many boxes to check and milestones to complete before they can consider themselves one move away — even if that one move is adding Giannis Antetokounmpo. The correct path to title contention is to build a strong foundation and wait.

However…

Just because the Blazers shouldn’t trade FOR Giannis doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t try to involve themselves in the Giannis trade.

Get In There and Make It About You, Portland

As part of the Damian Lillard trade to Milwaukee back in 2023, the Blazers own the rights to a pick swap with the Bucks in 2028 and 2030, and currently own the best and worst of the Bucks’, Celtics’ and Blazers’ picks in 2029 (the middle pick belongs to Washington as part of the Deni Avdija trade).

That means Portland owns Milwaukee’s destiny from 2028-2030. If the Bucks want that back, they’re going to have to give Joe Cronin a phone call.

The Blazers can be the middleman of a blockbuster deal, administering the necessary draft capital in return for a roster upgrade from a team that isn’t Milwaukee.

Last offseason, when the Giannis trade rumors were doing warmup stretches on the sideline, Antetokounmpo reportedly signaled that he would like to be traded to the Knicks.