Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> on Monday night in exchange for a massive haul of players and draft picks.<\/p>\nThe terms, according to a person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the move has yet to receive the required league approval: Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis are heading to Miami for Wisconsin native Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel\u2019el Ware and Kasparas Jakucionis. Milwaukee also gets at least four picks, including the No. 13 selection that will be made in\u00a0Tuesday night\u2019s NBA draft.<\/p>\n
ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the other picks are unprotected firsts in 2031 and 2033, a pick swap in 2030 and a 2033 second-rounder.<\/p>\n
It ends a wild back-and-forth in the final days of the saga, with the Bucks considering offers from both Miami and Boston\u00a0for Antetokounmpo\u00a0\u2014 who led Milwaukee to the 2021 NBA title, was on the NBA\u2019s 75th anniversary list of its greatest players ever, is a nine-time All-NBA selection and is coming off an injury-shortened season where he averaged 27.6 points per game.<\/p>\n
There has been no secret that this is what Miami has sought, because this is what Miami usually seeks. The Heat pulled off similar moves by landing Shaquille O\u2019Neal in 2004 (helping lead to the 2006 NBA title) and by getting LeBron James and Chris Bosh to play alongside Dwyane Wade in 2010 (leading to four NBA Finals runs in four seasons together, along with the 2012 and 2013 NBA titles).<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s Antetokounmpo\u2019s turn. At 31, the Heat clearly believe he still has many good years left \u2014 and it\u2019s generally presumed that by making this deal they\u2019ll give the Greek superstar a massive extension later this year.<\/p>\n
He was a perennial MVP candidate in Milwaukee, getting votes for that award in nine consecutive seasons before 2025-26 when too many missed games left him ineligible.<\/p>\n
He has averaged 24.1 points and 9.9 rebounds per game in his career, with 10 consecutive seasons of averaging at least 22.9 points \u2014 with three years in there of averaging more than 30 points per game.<\/p>\n
Only seven current players have more points in their careers than Antetokounmpo, who has totalled 21,531 to this point.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo had been mentioned in trade talks countless times in recent years, with the Bucks always insisting \u2014 with words and actions \u2014 that they had no interest in trading their best player and one of the best players in the history of their franchise.<\/p>\n
But this time, it seemed different.<\/p>\n
The Bucks, who\u00a0fired Doc Rivers\u00a0as coach after the season, don\u2019t have a roster that would be considered a championship contender. By trading Antetokounmpo, they can essentially start over with four players (and the Heat were high on all of them) along with draft capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think before the draft is a natural time, right, because if Giannis does play somewhere else we\u2019re going to get a lot of assets. … You\u2019ve got to get it right,\u201d Bucks co-owner Jimmy Haslam said in May, when the team introduced\u00a0new coach Taylor Jenkins\u00a0\u2014 who was told that Antetokounmpo may or may not be with the franchise when next season starts.<\/p>\n
Jenkins and the rest of the NBA now has the answer: Antetokounmpo won’t be there.<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo had spoken highly of Miami many times over the years, even when the Heat and Bucks were going head-to-head in the playoffs. He also shares an agent with Heat star center Bam Adebayo, who was the only player that Miami clearly was not willing to part with in order to make this deal happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to play tough and they\u2019re not going to stop playing,\u201d Antetokounmpo said after Milwaukee played Miami on March 12. \u201cThat\u2019s the Miami Heat culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Little did anyone know that night that those words were coming after what would be the next-to-last game for Antetokounmpo in a Bucks uniform. He played three nights later against Indiana, then was held out of Milwaukee\u2019s final 15 games of the season.<\/p>\n
The Bucks said that was for injury-related reasons. Antetokounmpo said he wanted to play.<\/p>\n
He had some bouts with injury this past season: Antetokounmpo missed four games in late November with a left\u00a0adductor strain\u00a0and sat out eight games in December with a\u00a0right calf strain,\u00a0then he injured the\u00a0right calf again\u00a0in January.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0landed awkwardly\u00a0on a dunk in that March 15 victory over Indiana and didn\u2019t play again due to what team officials had labelled as a left knee hyperextension and bone bruise. Antetokounmpo said the last few weeks of the season that\u00a0he was healthy\u00a0and wanted to play, a dispute that resulted in an\u00a0investigation\u00a0by the league office.<\/p>\n
\u2014 With files from Sportsnet Staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And the Heat finally have another superstar. Ending a marathon watch for the next great Miami get, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-755111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}