his latest article on \u2018The Stein Line\u2019 Substack<\/a> that \u201cnumerous NBA front offices began operating under the belief in recent days \u2014 arguably with greater conviction than ever before \u2014 that a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade before the league\u2019s trade deadline had become unexpectedly possible\u201d.<\/p>\nThat was prior to the calf injury, which while not completely ruling out a trade for Antetokounmpo before the deadline does complicate such a move taking place.<\/p>\n
One thing that is now clear is that the Bucks are very unlikely to consider win-now moves before the deadline, with the Antetokounmpo injury only making it harder for Milwaukee to lift itself up the Eastern Conference standings.<\/p>\n
For the record, the Bucks sit 11th in the East with a 18-26 record which puts them comfortably behind the 10th-placed Hawks at 22-25 in the race for a spot in the play-in. <\/p>\n
The talk in the lead-up to the trade deadline was that the Bucks, who signed Myles Turner in free agency after creatively waiving and stretching Damian Lillard\u2019s contract, would find more ways to put a winning roster around Antetokounmpo.<\/p>\n
But with the franchise superstar now out of action for at least a month, there isn\u2019t the same level of urgency for the Bucks to act now given even a considerable upgrade to the supporting cast wouldn\u2019t mean much if Antetokounmpo is not healthy.<\/p>\n
For now, the question is whether Antetokounmpo will be traded before the deadline with Fischer reporting there is a \u201crising leaguewide belief that a divorce is inevitable\u201d.<\/p>\n
One league source, who Fischer described as being \u201cparticularly well-versed in Bucks matters\u201d said \u201cthis is shaping up to be a draft-day kind of thing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s happening,\u201d added another.<\/p>\n
Boston beat Brooklyn in double overtime | 02:11<\/p>\n
The Bucks may be better served waiting until the offseason when there will be more clarity over the value of this year\u2019s draft picks. Alternatively, on draft night Milwaukee will also have more tradeable draft picks at its disposal to make a major move that could convince Antetokounmpo to stay.<\/p>\n
As Fischer noted, however, the risk of waiting is that after this season Antetokounmpo only has one more guaranteed season on his contract along with a $62.8 million player option for 2027-28. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo Antetokounmpo and agent Alex Saratsis would wield the very real threat of leaving town after just one season, likely dissuading certain teams from pursuing a Giannis trade and also potentially limiting the trade return that the Bucks could command,\u201d Fischer wrote.<\/p>\n
It makes for an interesting week-and-a-half before the deadline and while there are still many questions to be answered, it is starting to look increasingly likely that Antetokounmpo\u2019s time in Milwaukee is nearing an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giannis Antetokounmpo may remain a Milwaukee Buck beyond the NBA\u2019s upcoming trade deadline, but it is sounding like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-436256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n