Who would\u2019ve thought that the biggest sports story in the country leading up to the Super Bowl would be a Greek NBA player?<\/p>\n
Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>, the Milwaukee Bucks\u2019<\/a> golden boy for years, is preparing to be traded. The two-time MVP, NBA champion and finals MVP has had trade rumors swirling since the beginning of the calendar year.<\/p>\n Antetokounmpo recently said that he deep down wants to retire as a Buck<\/a>. As the franchise player who won the team their first NBA title since 1971, he has already cemented himself as a legend. However, loyalty in the NBA doesn\u2019t mean much; it is and will forever be a business. Just ask Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a>.<\/p>\n The primary asset the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> received in the Don\u010di\u0107 trade last season, Anthony Davis<\/a>, has just been traded to the Washington Wizards<\/a>. Washington, a team that traded for four-time All-Star Trae Young<\/a> last month, is telling the league that it is trying to win now.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, in a league with the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and the rest of the Western Conference, it seems unlikely that a championship is within reach this year.<\/p>\n What makes everything more confusing is that the 2026 NBA Draft class is one of the best in a long time. The University of Kansas\u2019 Darryn Peterson<\/a>, Brigham Young University\u2019s A.J. Dybantsa<\/a> and Duke University\u2019s Cameron Boozer<\/a> make tanking look awfully appealing; if you can\u2019t compete with Oklahoma City, there\u2019s really no point in loading up for the short-term.\u00a0<\/p>\n Along these lines, the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> traded former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr.<\/a> to the Utah Jazz for a package that included three first-round draft picks<\/a>. Memphis is completely offloading, which signifies that their rebuild is underway.<\/p>\n Utah is brewing something<\/a> with a core of Keyonte George, Ace Bailey, Lauri Markkanen, Walker Kessler and now Jackson Jr. Can they win right now with these players? Only time will tell.<\/p>\n The New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> are all over the news as they are still in NBA purgatory. They traded their 2026 first-round draft pick last year to the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> to move up and select Derik Queen<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although Queen has been solid thus far, it still makes no sense as to why they made this move, considering this year\u2019s draft class.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Chicago Bulls<\/a>, who have been very active in the trade market, have been linked to looking at Zion Williamson and Yves Missi<\/a>, two players who won\u2019t help the Pelicans win a championship anytime soon.<\/p>\n The deadline is Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. EST, and there should be plenty more movement until that point.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who would\u2019ve thought that the biggest sports story in the country leading up to the Super Bowl would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,896,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-583256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-free-agency","10":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116015809958728410","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583256","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=583256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}