Good afternoon! I decided to write a special midday edition of the KFS Newsletter, as I had far too many thoughts on this Giannis thing to wait until the morning. As a result, tomorrow’s newsletter will be a bit on the shorter side, but I promise, something will be in your inbox at 5am.
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OK, OK, let’s try and handle this thing in an orderly fashion to avoid a potentia-
All things considered, I’d say Knicks Nation reacted fairly well to Shams’ report that New York and Milwaukee had trade discussions around Giannis Antetokounmpo over the summer after the two-time MVP made it clear to Bucks’ management that he wanted to be a Knick if he ever asked out.
And honestly, I’m not really surprised. The majority of fans I speak to are sick of talking about the next savior reportedly interested in coming to save the Knicks, especially since they’ve done a pretty good job of saving themselves. If anything, there was an under-reaction to this story considering what was in the report.
The other reason this didn’t cause too much of a fuss is that talks didn’t get very far. According to Shams, the teams never gained any real traction on a deal, although the reason why remains unclear. The Knicks reportedly never made an all-out push to land Antetokounmpo because they never believed Milwaukee truly intended on trading him, while the Bucks “insisted to the Knicks that they preferred not to move Antetokounmpo” when the talks first started.
Ultimately, this feels like two teams who knew this wasn’t the summer an earthquake was destined to occur, although everyone was doing their do diligence – the Bucks to appease their superstar by at least picking up the phone, and the Knicks by kicking the tires on someone they surely have some degree of interest in.
How great that interest is presently remains unclear, not because Leon Rose wouldn’t love adding a top-three player to his roster, but because of the cost, both in assets and, should the Knicks not be able to land the plane, the upheaval it might cause within New York’s locker room. Once they commit to pulling out all the stops to land Antetokounmpo, the ripple effects will be felt throughout the NBA. Rose will be forced to canvas the entire league for assets that would be appealing to a soon-to-be-rebuilding Bucks franchise that likely has no interest in the win-now talent New York has to offer. Once agents get involved, there might be no turning back.
But we’re a long way away from that point, and the Knicks have a season to play – one which could very well end in a title thanks to the roster they currently have in place. That’s the other reason there was probably no rush on Rose’s part. Nine months from now, he’ll be operating with much more information. Either his team wins the title (yay!) or if they lose, Leon will in all likelihood be looking to make a Giannis-sized upgrade.
Check out this morning’s livestream here.
At that point, Antetokounmpo will be a year away from his potential free agency, and if he decides not to sign an extension, the Bucks will be forced to make a move. The question then becomes how much pressure he will exert behind the scenes to use his impending free agency to scare off other potential suitors from making a Godfather offer the Knicks simply wouldn’t be able to match. Thus far, we’ve never seen a team give up a mega-package for an in-his-prime superstar with less than two years on his contract without some level of confidence he’d re-sign. In other words, Antetokounmpo still holds the cards here.
The Knicks know that, which is why it makes sense they’ve slow-played this one thus far. It also checks out that the Bucks have no appetite for a Giannis trade at the moment given how much their leverage will decrease a year from now. It’s one thing to trade everything for a superstar who might want to leave in a year; it’s another thing to get yourself at least two full seasons out of the transaction. By that logic, Milwaukee could have waged an all-out campaign to send Giannis to the highest bidder this summer. That they elected not to do so says they had at least some level of confidence that Antetokounmpo will change his mind, or at the very least, that they might not lose too much ground by waiting until the trade deadline.
That may have been a dangerous game though. For one, in-season star trades are far harder to pull off once roster limits go down from 21 to 15. This, I’m guessing, played into New York’s calculus as well.
Of even more relevance is that now, the Bucks need to deal with this dirty laundry being aired out. Up until now, the Giannis camp has never gone public with anything even resembling an open trade request, and while this report falls short of that extreme measure, it does feel like an unmistakable sign that they now mean business.
Might Antetokounmpo’s people have told the Bucks in the beginning of the summer that he would make their lives more uncomfortable if they didn’t make an honest to goodness effort to get him to New York? Perhaps, in which case yesterday’s report was merely them following through on that promise. Either way, if Milwaukee’s front office didn’t think the matter was serious yet, they certainly do now, and it may have negatively impacted their bargaining position with other teams even further.
(To repeat: it’s not that other teams can’t beat New York’s best offer. It’s that they may never make their own best offer if they think Giannis will bolt in a year. To this end, Antetokounmpo would benefit from a stalking horse with major cap space in the summer of 2027. Hello, LA Lakers!)
So where does this end up? At the end of the day, no matter how much leverage Giannis exerts, the Knicks are still going to need to walk a fine tightrope here. On one hand, they need to compile an offer that makes the Bucks whole after they trade the greatest player in franchise history. On the other hand, they can’t gut their team to the point where a trade isn’t even a definitive step forward.
The most obvious path to toeing that line is finding a third (or fourth) team who values one (or more) of New York’s players enough to send real draft assets and/or young players to the Bucks. Before we even get there though, it pays to look at what draft assets the Knicks will be able to offer next summer:
Their own 2026 first (which can be dealt after draft night, and will likely be bad)
Whatever becomes of the fake Wizards first – likely two good second rounders
A bunch of other seconds of varying quality
A 2030 first round pick swap
A 2032 first round pick swap
A 2033 unprotected first round pick
That leaves them short at least two juicy firsts (read: distant and unprotected, ideally from a team without a great track record), assuming there is no blue chip young player in the deal.
There’s also a question of whether the Bucks want to completely bottom out, which they may very well not want to given a) their market and b) the fact that they don’t currently control any of their own first round picks until 2031. More than that, their outgoing pick situation is among the messiest in the league. Take, for example, the protections involved on their 2027 first rounder, which would be the primary pick of interest if they were going to trade Giannis next summer and immediately pivot into a tank:
Courtesy of RealGM.com
God bless anyone who can make heads or tails of that mishegas.
(In short, if the Bucks wanted to regain full control over their 2027 pick, both the Pels and Hawks would need to be involved in a trade. Looking further ahead, both Portland and Washington have split control over the Bucks’ first rounders in both 2028 and 2029, and then Portland has a swap coming in 2030. In other words, yeesh.)
My guess is that the Bucks would try and split the baby: try and remain competitive for a few years (because recouping their outgoing picks would be too complicated anyway) while amassing young players and good first rounders from other teams.
Could the Knicks put together the sort of trade that might check all those boxes while making them a better team in the process? I think they might.
I’m not prepared to do a full on Giannis trade package newsletter quite yet, but let me spitball a few things in the interim:
The notion of two of New York’s top three non-Brunson players (KAT, OG and Mikal) going out and one Giannis coming in doesn’t seem like a bad idea on its face. I’ve wondered for the better part of a year whether the Knicks as currently constituted have an “only one ball” problem. Mike Brown’s fast-paced, equal opportunity offense will hopefully solve some of these issues, but it doesn’t really change the fact that the Knicks currently have four players on their roster who all feel they should be getting 15+ shots a game, which probably isn’t realistic. I remain convinced that this, and not the Josh Hart spacing issues, are the true culprit of why the starting five tanked last season (with a healthy dose of Thibsian stubbornness sprinkled in).
OG Anunoby or Mikal Bridges would be the key to getting Milwaukee the picks they desire. With both guys now inked to expensive new contracts (and with Mikal’s value down at the moment due to an underwhelming first season in New York), neither is going to fetch a true mother load, but all it takes is one interested team to bite. For example, would the perpetually moribund Kings swap Zach LaVine ($49 million player option in ‘27-28, FYI) along with multiple distant, fully unprotected draft assets for Anunoby? Would the Mavs trade multiple future picks (they can move both their ‘31 and ‘33 firsts next summer) with a pu pu platter of mid-tier contracts in exchange for Bridges? Would our old friends the Wolves attach Rob Dillingham and either their 2032 swap or their 2033 first to Julius Randle to get OG, who makes immensely more sense on their roster? The Hawks have a decent amount of movable salary, future draft equity (including from Milwaukee) and a recent No. 1 overall pick. Houston has young players and picks galore.
The biggest decision New York will have to make – and it may not be up to them – involves the center position. There are far too many combinations and permutations to spell out here, but in short, does New York view KAT and Giannis as an ideal combo? Would Towns have to be the returning salary to Milwaukee, or is there another way to make the money work? Does Leon feel that Antetokounmpo can play with a non-floor spacer like Mitch, whose impending free agency now gets even more interesting? Would the Bucks want New York to take on Myles Turner along with Giannis, and would the Knicks happily oblige? Or do the Knicks feel that center would be the ideal position for Giannis as he eases into his 30’s?
On this last point, for the Knicks to come out of a Giannis trade in peak position, it feels like they need to keep at least one of OG or Mikal, which makes me think that the likeliest deal construction involves KAT going to the Bucks, OG or Mikal going to a third team, the third team sending necessary salary and picks/young players to Milwaukee, and Giannis and Turner coming to New York. In this scenario, Mitch would likely be signed and traded somewhere, either to add to the trade return for Milwaukee or simply for a player that makes more sense for New York’s roster post-trade.
Accounting only for Giannis, Turner, Brunson, Mikal (who makes about $9 million less than OG in ‘26-27 – not an insignificant amount, as we’ll soon see) Hart and Deuce, the Knicks would be about $30 million below the second apron in ‘26-27. They could get a decent player on the mini-midlevel (which netted them Yabu this summer), but that would cap them at the apron, which might not be tenable. Alternatively, they could blow past the apron, which would make it easier to bring back Yabusele (who has a $5.8 million player option), get someone good back in a Mitch sign & trade (or simply retain Mitch), and still retain the likes of Jordan Clarkson, Malcolm Brogdon, and whoever else was willing to come on the minimum.
There’s also a world where they keep KAT and a starting wing and trade for Giannis, but that would entail gutting the rest of the roster, to say nothing of there now really being a shortage of shots to go around. In other words, if Giannis Antetokounmpo winds up a Knick, Karl-Anthony Towns almost certainly winds up a Buck.
And then of course there’s the possibility that things go horribly in Milwaukee to open this season and Giannis really does try to force their hand this winter. That might bring more teams into the mix, but only a team in the title hunt would give up the gargantuan trade package needed to complete the deal. With the East being as weak as it is, this can’t be ruled out.
But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, the Knicks find themselves in a fairly enviable position: good enough to compete for a championship as currently constituted, but also a desired location for one of the best players in the world, with the ability to swing a deal if a few things break right.
Things, as they say, could be worse.
🏀
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”