{"id":766987,"date":"2026-06-29T03:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/766987\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T03:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:38:08","slug":"nba-free-agency-2026-lebron-james-lakers-decision-looms-whats-next-for-kawhi-leonard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/766987\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA free agency 2026: LeBron James’ Lakers decision looms; What’s next for Kawhi Leonard?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giannis Antetokounmpo is set to become a member of the Miami Heat<\/a>. It’s still surreal to type, considering Giannis’ long history with the Bucks (and the city of Milwaukee) and Miami’s recent pursuits of no-doubt-about-it superstars coming up short. Even during this cycle, there seemed to be real smoke behind the Boston Celtics<\/a> landing Giannis for a package headlined by Jaylen Brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Heat were able to land their whale. They had to empty the proverbial clip to do it \u2014 Tyler Herro<\/a>, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a>, Kasparas Jaku\u010dionis, three first-round picks (including this year’s selection, Nate Ament<\/a>), a pick swap, and a second rounder \u2014 but they clearly felt it was worth it with a guy like Giannis on the table.<\/p>\n

While last season was an injury-plagued mess for the Bucks, it’s worth remembering just how dominant Giannis still is. In just 28.9 minutes per contest, he averaged 27.6 points (65\/33\/65 splits, a career-best 65.8 true shooting), 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists. The list of downhill threats in his class can be counted on one hand. And when engaged, he can still be a rangy defender who can create havoc at a high level.<\/p>\n

Landing the superstar is the hard part, and the Heat have done that. Their next job is to parlay this acquisition into building a legitimate contender \u2014 a tall task, but not an impossible one.<\/p>\n

It’s fair to say they have some pretty big questions to answer before the season starts. Let’s talk through some of them, while examining some potential answers.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giannis Antetokounmpo is set to become a member of the Miami Heat. It’s still surreal to type, considering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,30097,63,5670,7214,9848,7228,174375,12998,7896,7232,5851,7223,5665,590,12301,85],"class_list":["post-766987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-austin-reaves","tag-australia","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-detroit-pistons","tag-free-agency","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-isaiah-stewart","tag-lamelo-ball","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-miami-heat","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766987","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=766987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}