The Bucks are toast, and trading Antetokounmpo may be the only path forward

The only important thing to monitor now is whether the Milwaukee Bucks trade center Giannis Antetokounmpo, and if so, when. (Pinterest via Giannis Antetokounmpo Milwaukee Bucks hd wallpaper NBA)

By John Hollinger / The Athletic

There is no way to sugarcoat this: The Milwaukee Bucks are done.

The only important thing to monitor now is whether they trade center Giannis Antetokounmpo, and if so, when. Damian Lillard’s Achilles tendon injury on April 27 was the final blow, the last solid piece of the Good Ship Giannis that was keeping it afloat.

Let’s start here: You will pardon Lillard if some of these plotlines seem familiar because within the tragedy of his injury lies multiple parallels.

The first is that this is how his Portland Trail Blazers team ended up rebuilding in 2015, when an Achilles tendon injury in March to Wesley Matthews torpedoed a 51-win team. The campaign ended with a first-round defeat to Memphis (as the Grizzlies’ vice president for basketball operations at the time, I enjoyed that series more than Lillard did) and with All-Star forward LaMarcus Aldridge leaving in free agency after the season. The Blazers rebuilt from the ashes of that to make the 2019 Western Conference finals.

The second parallel is that Lillard’s injury could set up the same situation in Milwaukee that led to the end of his tenure in Portland, with a wait for a trade demand dragging out the endgame of a hopeless roster.

As far as contending for anything important soon, it was already extremely difficult for the Bucks. Now, after Lillard’s injury, it is basically impossible.

They have no good young players and no draft assets, and their annual wrestling match with the collective bargaining agreement’s second-apron threshold results in more losses at the margins every year. The Bucks’ two best players after Antetokounmpo are free agents (Brook Lopez and Bobby Portis). Of the two highest-paid players under contract after Antetokounmpo, one may miss all of next season and be 36 when he returns for 2026-27 (Lillard), and the other is not any good (Kyle Kuzma).

Antetokounmpo was, at worst, the third-best player in the NBA in 2024-25, and all that got the Bucks was the fifth seed and a first-round playoff beating that was well in progress before Lillard’s injury. Milwaukee’s lineups with its two stars on the court had just a plus-4.7 net rating this season, or about what the New York Knicks, Grizzlies, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves did across all 4,000-ish minutes of the season. Even the Bucks’ best pairings were not contender-level good.

Thus, all eyes turn to Antetokounmpo, much as all eyes did on Lillard as his situation in Portland grew increasingly hopeless in 2022 and 2023. Antetokounmpo is the best player this franchise will have in this century, most likely, but he is 30 and looking at spending the remainder of his prime surrounded by underwhelming rosters.

The best-case scenario for the next two seasons (when Lillard soaks up salary cap hits of $54.1 million and $58.5 million) is that Antetokounmpo’s greatness and the Eastern Conference’s sadness combine forces to let him drag Milwaukee to a sixth seed and another first-round mismatch.

After 2027, when Lillard’s deal comes off the books, the Bucks have a cleaner cap, but they still have little to no draft or development pipeline. At that point, Antetokounmpo will be 32 and a free agent, if he does not extend his deal again.

Obviously, there is a short-term incentive for the Bucks to go overboard to keep Antetokounmpo optimistic about their future. To an extent, I understand it: This isn’t New York or Los Angeles. The temptation is to hang on at all costs for as long as he wants to be there.

One wild idea, for instance, would be to trade Lillard to the Phoenix Suns for Bradley Beal and at least get something from an expensive salary slot next season. Another would be putting a future first rounder in 2031 or 2032 in play — the only ones they have left to trade — to augment the roster by dumping Kuzma, turning Pat Connaughton’s $9.5 million salary into a starting-caliber player.

When it’s over, it’s over. You cannot fight it in this league. Thus, the existential question in Milwaukee is this: Regardless of whether Antetokounmpo asks for a trade, are the Bucks best served by trading him and starting over?

The answer would be yes, a no-brainer, if the Bucks still had access to their own draft picks, but they are so short on assets that it complicates things. Tanking for a high draft pick is not on the table for at least half a decade because of trades the Bucks made.

This was the genius of the Brooklyn Nets reacquiring their own picks in the June 2024 Mikal Bridges trade, even if the Nets had to overpay Houston to do it: It gave them free rein to embrace a full-on tank. Milwaukee could pursue a similar plan only by trading with the New Orleans Pelicans to get back their 2026 pick swap and the top-four portion of its 2027 unprotected first. But the “fifth through 30th” piece has already been sent to Atlanta.

Still, such a move would give the Bucks two bites at the apple on high picks while they waited for their cap situation to clean out. But again, there is only one team they can execute this trade with, and players are not exactly pining to get to New Orleans. It would almost have to be a sidebar to a primary trade that sent Antetokounmpo someplace else; imagine a deal, for instance, where the Bucks get draft picks for Antetokounmpo and trade some of them to the Pelicans to regain access to their own picks.

The Bucks should be looking to get in the NBA lottery in June as part of any trade, kick-starting things right now.

The most obvious candidate is Houston. The Rockets can offer a mini-Antetokounmpo in Amen Thompson, salivating draft picks in the form of a 2025 lottery pick from the Suns, unprotected Phoenix firsts in 2027 and 2029 (the latter of which is the better of Phoenix’s or Dallas’) and enough salary-matching flotsam to offset Antetokounmpo’s incoming $54.6 million and get a deal to the finish line.

Brooklyn is the other candidate, with enough cap room to swallow other Milwaukee contracts (maybe not Lillard’s, but could the Nets take Connaughton and Kuzma?). The Nets cannot put a talent like Thompson in a trade, but they have four firsts in 2025 (most likely Pick Nos. 6, 19, 26 and 27), an unprotected Suns swap in 2028, three unprotected future firsts from the Knicks and all of their own future draft picks available in a trade. The cap relief and draft capital are a pretty rare package.

No other team can match the Nets and Rockets on draft capital unless Oklahoma City decides to get in the game, and I’m skeptical the Thunder would pursue this once the price became clear.

Two other places the Bucks could look for a partner are San Antonio and Toronto. Those four teams are the favorites, but the Bucks will get calls from all 29 if they make Antetokounmpo available. Even without access to their own future picks, the Bucks are in such a bad spot that the only logical move is to bang the gavel on a bidding war and rebuild with the spoils.

No, Bucks fans, you’re not getting Victor Wembanyama for Antetokounmpo. But you might get Stephon Castle. The Spurs also have two 2025 lottery picks (their own and Atlanta’s), an unprotected 2027 pick from Atlanta and several swaps, plus they can deal their own picks in 2029 and 2031. Keldon Johnson and Harrison Barnes would be the salary ballast. If Antetokounmpo was OK going to an unglamorous market, this is probably the one where the allure is clear (Wemby-Giannis!) and the trade assets make sense.

Finally, there’s Toronto, where the team president, Masai Ujiri, has been rumored to be scheming to get Antetokounmpo since roughly forever. The trade equation here seems pretty simple: Toronto’s 2025 lottery pick and Scottie Barnes, plus whatever other draft considerations the Bucks would want to level out the deal. (The Raptors have all their future firsts to put in a trade.)

Those four teams are the favorites, but the Bucks will get calls from all 29 if they make Antetokounmpo available. Even without access to their own future picks, the Bucks are in such a bad spot that the only logical move is to bang the gavel on a bidding war and rebuild with the spoils.