The Milwaukee Bucks entered the 2025-26 season with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future looming over everything. The superstar forward can opt out of his deal in the summer of 2027 and there were plenty of reports stating he wasn’t convinced the Bucks were the team that could give him a chance to win the second championship he so craves.
Reports emerged that the Bucks and Knicks discussed a Giannis swap, with New York being among Antetokounmpo’s preferred destinations. There were also reports that Miami would be another possible home, but through it all Antetokounmpo tried to distance himself from the chatter.
On Thursday, The Athletic published an interview with Antetokounmpo that offered his strongest statement yet regarding trade rumors and reports he could ask out, insisting he’ll never be the one to demand a trade.
“There will never be a chance, and there will never be a moment that I will come out and say I want a trade. That’s not … in … my … nature. OK?”
Throughout the interview he noted that there’s always the potential for people to change their minds and all he can do is tell you how he feels in this moment. At the same time, he doubled down on his desire to stay in Milwaukee long-term, saying, “My plan is to be here for the rest of my career. If they don’t want me…”
When pressed that he’s really the one in charge of this situation given the realities of the star-team dynamic in the modern NBA, Giannis pushed back.
“I’m not the one in charge. I am an employee. … On the court, I can only control what I can control. I’m not in charge,” Antetokounmpo said. “Somebody writes my check. Tomorrow, the person who writes my check might say, ‘I don’t want to write that check no more. Let somebody else write that check.'”
There has been some form of trade chatter surrounding Giannis for years, with the refrain from the star always being that he loves Milwaukee and wants to be there, but that his main priority is winning championships. The Bucks responded to that by taking some huge swings on the trade market to appease that desire to varying results.
Acquiring Jrue Holiday helped Milwaukee win a title. Acquiring Damian Lillard ended up setting the franchise back after a couple injury plagued seasons for Lillard and Antetokounmpo. This summer, they scrambled to reset the table, stretching and waiving Lillard and signing Myles Turner in free agency. While the Bucks got off to a hot start, an injury to Giannis derailed their progress and they’re in the midst of trying to claw their way out of that hole, sitting 11th in the East at 16-21.
Those struggles only added to the noise about Antetokounmpo’s future, but he seems to want to shift the onus onto the franchise to decide if they want to continue investing in taking those swings for championships. The entire situation feels like a high-stakes game of chicken, where neither the star nor the franchise wants to be the one to pull the plug and end up looking like the bad guy.
Giannis is the most beloved athlete in Bucks history. Both he and the franchise are keenly aware of the optics of moving him. He doesn’t want to be viewed as the guy that pushed his way out when things got hard. The Bucks don’t want to trade him and start rebuilding until there’s at least some public sentiment that’d be best for the franchise.
The result seems to be another year where the Bucks and Giannis will try to make things work before going into another summer where there’s pressure on Milwaukee to figure out how to build a contender around a player who is still one of the 3-5 best in the league.
