For a good few months, everyone associated with the Milwaukee Bucks, be it the front desk, the members of the roster, or their fans, every single one of them could be found plucking rose petals, thinking \u201cwill he, won\u2019t he?\u201d loudly, as the rest of the league prepared their bids for Giannis Antetokounmpo. The trade deadline passed, with Giannis still in a Bucks jersey.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t mean the drama has come to an end. The Bucks have simply failed to put a championship-winning cast around the 2021 NBA Finals MVP. They are currently struggling at 12th in the Western Conference, 30 losses to their 23 wins, so it\u2019s still very likely that Giannis <\/a>might look elsewhere for his 2nd ring.<\/p>\n Naturally, with every condition pointing to a separation, the rumors were in full flow in the lead-up to this recently concluded trade deadline. Throughout it all, however, Giannis maintained a principled and professional stance, and the Bucks roster, at the very least, is grateful for it.<\/p>\n Bucks forward Myles Turner and New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart, on their podcast, talked about how the mood in the locker room has been amidst this madness.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it starts with literally what he is doing now, you can kind of see him, kind of can\u2019t,\u201d Turner said, pointing to the back of the gym, where Giannis was putting some work in.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s just out there, putting in the work, bro. I think that\u2019s a really big thing. He worked through all that noise. I think that no matter what happens, what you see, you\u2019re always going to see his face on TV \u2026 there\u2019s a new report this day. There, \u201dokay, he said this, this day,’\u201d Turner continued<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing I have to give him credit for is, he\u2019s been dealing with this for quite some time now, for the past few years. He\u2019s very stonefaced in front of us, he\u2019s still the same guy. He\u2019s joking, he\u2019s laughing. He\u2019s got a really outgoing personality, when he\u2019s around us \u2026 honestly, I feel for him. I have not been on his level but I have been through 4-5 years of trade rumors. It\u2019s not fun,\u201d Turner <\/a>explained.<\/p>\n The Bucks star noted that constant stories like that in the media can mess up a player and, subsequently, the psyche of a team, \u201cespecially when he\u2019s hurt and not playing. So, it\u2019s not an easy time but I think he\u2019s handling it really well and it\u2019s not going to stop anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n Calling himself a bit of a conspiracy theorist, Turner floated the idea that since Giannis is an European superstar, the NBA wanted him out of a smaller market and playing for the big franchises that would bring more eyes, more money, and more everything else for the league.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you move someone like him, in the prime of his career, to a bigger team and whatnot, the following just goes up crazy, as opposed to him, spending his \u2018best prime years\u2019 on a small market team,\u201d Turner argued.<\/p>\n Turner\u2019s not wrong. The NBA would certainly love having Giannis play for a big team with some serious names on its roster. It would enhance their global marketability. Theories on the forums on the internet often try to link what\u2019s happening with Giannis to how Luka Doncic found himself on a big-name market after a shocking trade that came out of left field.<\/p>\n For now, Giannis has shut down all talks of him wanting to move out of Milwaukee. So the best anyone can do is wait for the end of the season and see in which direction the wind blows come summertime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a good few months, everyone associated with the Milwaukee Bucks, be it the front desk, the members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,123,102,121,3871,367,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-603158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-bucks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bucks","10":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","11":"tag-milwaukee","12":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","13":"tag-milwaukeebucks","14":"tag-myles-turner","15":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116070356401544587","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603158","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=603158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}