On Wednesday morning, the NBA\u2019s unofficial press secretary, ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania, sent up the flare that the Golden State Warriors have been staring at the sky waiting to see for half a decade.<\/p>\n
Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, the tweet read, is \u201cready for a new home.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Warriors CEO<\/a> Joe Lacob, this was supposed to be the culmination of the Great Plan; the endgame. The entire organizational philosophy \u2014 the frantic hoarding of \u201cassets<\/a>,\u201d the \u201cTwo Timelines\u201d bridge that collapsed under its own hubris<\/a>, the refusal to sell high on young talent<\/a> \u2014 was ostensibly designed for this singular moment. The goal was to be standing there, chest out, ready to pounce when the next generational superstar finally shook loose from a small market.<\/p>\n And now that the moment is actually here?<\/p>\n The Warriors are walking up to the VIP section only to realize they don\u2019t have enough cash for the cover charge.<\/p>\n In fact, they look like the \u201cbefore\u201d actor in a late-night infomercial \u2014 bumbling, fumbling, and altogether disheveled, wondering where it all went wrong.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s quickly revisit the phrasing of that report, because it is a masterclass in modern NBA media nonsense:<\/p>\n \u201cReady for a new home.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t say \u201che wants out.\u201d It certainly doesn\u2019t use the triggering words \u201ctrade demand.\u201d<\/p>\n It says he is ready. Open to the idea, if you will.<\/p>\n It is the linguistic equivalent of a messy divorce where neither spouse wants to be the one to actually file the papers because they\u2019re worried about how it will look on Instagram.<\/p>\n Between Giannis and the Bucks, no one wants to be the villain. No one wants to burn that bridge; they just desperately want to be on opposite sides of it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that a deal cannot be made. And technically, it\u2019s not as if the Warriors lack the salary filler to make the math work. They can cobble together the contracts. They can print out the trade machine screenshot. They can make an offer.<\/p>\n But can they actually make the deal? A winning deal?<\/p>\n Not unless the Bucks are reckless.<\/p>\n Jonathan Kuminga, once the jewel of the \u201clight years\u201d movement, is currently valued in trade talks somewhere between \u201clight intrigue\u201d and \u201csalary dump.\u201d Brandin Podziemski is a nice role player, sure, but his value in this deal seems entirely tied to the fact that he\u2019s from Milwaukee.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the Jimmy Butler component\u2014an aging superstar on an expiring contract (up after the 2026-27 season) who is currently injured. Ironically, the injury makes this deal easier \u2014 it brings clarity from the Warriors\u2019 perspective \u2014 but for the Bucks, he\u2019d be nothing more than a salary make-weight and maybe, just maybe, someone who plays a couple months in the city he played his college ball way back in the day. He\u2019s a necessary part of this deal, but he\u2019s hardly something to be excited about from Milwaukee\u2019s standpoint.<\/p>\n That and a whole mess of picks \u2014 who knows how many will be needed \u2014 is the pu-pu platter the Warriors are bringing to Milwaukee.<\/p>\n Even if Golden State panics and shoves every single chip into the middle of the pot, they are drawing dead. They are trying to bluff against the asset-rich vault of Sam Presti in Oklahoma City, or the young talent stockpiles in Houston and San Antonio. Those teams have war chests. The Warriors have a coin purse.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not even mentioning the Eastern Conference sharks \u2014 Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, New York, Toronto \u2014 circling the waters.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear: The Bucks haven\u2019t committed to trading the most important player in their franchise history since Lew Alcindor. They are merely signaling that the \u201cOpen\u201d sign is flickering in the window. And frankly, Milwaukee has zero incentive to rush. They would be well-served to shut the injured Antetokounmpo down for the rest of the campaign, tank for a high draft pick, and wait for the real offers to roll in this summer.<\/p>\n Because come June, the New York Knicks can unlock their draft picks. The Miami Heat can liquefy their assets. A new league year brings new perspectives and new assets, all of which the Bucks can use to their advantage.<\/p>\n Or, to put it more succinctly: the blinds at the table go up this summer.<\/p>\n Can the Warriors keep up with that? Because their offer is going to look the exact same now or later.<\/p>\n Perhaps I\u2019m underestimating the marketplace. Perhaps the Bucks look at a Steph Curry-Giannis pairing and decide it won\u2019t work \u2014 too old \u2014 thereby placing a premium on Golden State\u2019s distant draft picks. They might not be wrong in doing that.<\/p>\n But the Warriors, driven by the merciless ticking clock of Curry\u2019s career, are desperate.<\/p>\n For them, this has to work, and it has to work now. Because it is now or never for the Dubs.<\/p>\n And in their zeal to make the big move down the line, they failed to remember broke the first rule of the NBA\u2019s Wild West trade market:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to play the game, you\u2019d best come correct.<\/p>\n Instead, the Warriors have walked into a shootout with a squirt gun.<\/p>\n And yet they\u2019re wondering why nobody is ducking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday morning, the NBA\u2019s unofficial press secretary, ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania, sent up the flare that the Golden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,160,164,6,162,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-566979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-golden-state-warriors","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115974577231468379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}