The Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes are here. Well, not here, here. We’re still doing the “meeting to discuss his future” dance, according to ESPN, but to be frank, that song has been playing for months. The Bucks are 9-13. They just lost to the Wizards. They have very few future draft picks to trade. They have $20 million in dead Damian Lillard money for the next five years. This is not a team capable of genuine championship in the near future. If the Giannis era isn’t dead in Milwaukee, it’s at least on life support.
So that’s enough preamble. Yet again, Antetokounmpo has seemingly soft-launched his trade request. That can only happen so many times before a trade materializes. So what does the market look like if and when the move happens for real? Below, we’re going to rank all 29 non-Milwaukee teams as possible Antetokounmpo destinations. Teams will be ranked on how much they have to give up for him, how interested he would be in playing for them (as he can become a free agent in 2027), and how interested these teams would be in acquiring him. So without further ado, let’s begin.
Tier XI: He’s not re-signing there
29. Sacramento Kings
28. Charlotte Hornets
27. Washington Wizards
26. Utah Jazz
25. Memphis Grizzlies
We won’t waste much time here. Congratulations to the Kings on being the least desirable team for an MVP-caliber player in the NBA. It’s a title they’ve held for much of the past two decades. They’re bad, they’re poorly run and they play in a small market. The Hornets are bad and in a small market, but they’re at least seemingly operated like a normal franchise now. The same goes for the Wizards, but Washington is more desirable than Charlotte.
It’s a shame about Utah and Memphis, because they’re both pretty interesting basketball situations. Antetokounmpo and Lauri Markkanen would be fun teammates, and the Jazz have a bunch of draft picks to trade. Memphis has the infrastructure for an Antetokounmpo team: a stretch big (Jaren Jackson Jr.), defensive-minded wings (Cedric Cowards, Jaylen Wells) and guards who can shoot (Ty Jerome and Scotty Pippen Jr.). The Grizzlies could send back Ja Morant, Zach Edey and picks. Of course, if Kevin Durant and Jimmy Butler didn’t want to go to Memphis, it’s hard to imagine Antetokounmpo would either, especially in the West. Very few players ever want to relocate to Utah, though plenty find themselves pleasantly surprised once they’ve gotten there.
Tier X: They don’t have enough to trade
24. Phoenix Suns
23. Minnesota Timberwolves
22. Denver Nuggets
21. Dallas Mavericks
20. Los Angeles Clippers
The Suns are probably comfortable sitting out of the star trade market for the next few years, considering how poorly their last few forays into it went. It’s ironic. If they hadn’t traded for Kevin Durant and just played out the last few years organically, they’d be a perfect fit for Antetokounmpo. He and Devin Booker make a lot of sense as teammates. As it stands, a team with no picks and few notable players just isn’t getting into the mix here.
Minnesota and Denver are slightly plausible teams when it comes to Antetokounmpo’s own interest. I’m sure he’d love to play with Anthony Edwards or Nikola Jokić. But what are they giving up? There isn’t another All-Star on either roster, and both teams have spent all of their picks. They’re out.
Okay, Dallas does have enough to trade. But the Mavericks aren’t giving away Cooper Flagg, and without him, this is a team mostly devoid of youth and picks. Their best-case scenario would be trading Anthony Davis for a pile of assets they could then flip for Antetokounmpo, but who on Earth is eager to trade for Davis while Antetokounmpo is available? Davis just isn’t worth enough to get this done. The Mavericks are yet another “if only they hadn’t made that other big trade” team. If Nico Harrison was just a bit more patient, he might have been able to turn Luka Dončić into Antetokounmpo. That still would’ve been a bad trade, but it would have been slightly more defensible.
The Clippers have meticulously cleared their cap space to pursue star free agents in the coming offseasons, but they’ve done that primarily because they have nothing to trade. Free agency is their only path to another star, and given their poor performance and the looming Kawhi Leonard investigation, they’re probably not luring a player of this caliber there anyway. If Antetokounmpo wants to go to Los Angeles, why wouldn’t he just sign with the Lakers?
Tier IX: Respectfully bowing out
19. Oklahoma City Thunder
They’re 21-1. They have the best net rating in NBA history. There’s no reason to mess with this roster. Honestly, the best rationale Oklahoma City would have for trading for Antetokounmpo would be to keep him away from the field. They don’t need him, but they don’t want to play against him, either. That isn’t a good enough reason to actually trade for him, but don’t be surprised if they leak some minor interest to try to drive up the price. If a rival is going to get Antetokounmpo, the Thunder want to be sure they pay full price for him.
Tier VIII: Facilitator tier
18. New Orleans Pelicans
17. Portland Trail Blazers
New Orleans controls the best possible outcomes for Milwaukee’s 2027 first-round pick. That makes them a possible facilitator here, though there’s no chance Antetokounmpo actually joins the Pelicans. Trades of this magnitude almost always involve three or more teams, so keep an eye on New Orleans as a supporting part of the deal.
Portland is slightly more interesting. The Blazers control Milwaukee’s first-round picks in 2028, 2029 and 2030 thanks to the Damian Lillard trade. The Bucks would probably love to get those picks back so they can tank properly and rebuild on their own timeline. That makes Portland an obvious facilitator, but the concept of the Blazers getting in the mix for Antetokounmpo himself isn’t crazy either. They have multiple former teammates of his in Lillard and Jrue Holiday. Deni Avdija is growing into a star who would fit quite well beside Antetokounmpo, and the Blazers still have plenty of youth to deal in players like Scoot Henderson, Shaedon Sharpe and Donovan Clingan. It would probably be a tough sell for him to move to a Western Conference team that’s currently far below .500, but they’re an interesting sleeper.
Tier VII: How attached are you to your stars?
16. Boston Celtics
15. Philadelphia 76ers
14. Orlando Magic
In a cold, rational world, Jayson Tatum for Giannis Antetokounmpo actually makes a ton of sense. The Celtics could immediately jump back into championship contention. The Bucks could get a true superstar with a long-term contract back for the one who’s leaving, tank out the rest of this season, get the lesser of two pretty valuable picks (their own and New Orleans’), and then immediately try to trade that pick for more help for Tatum. But this isn’t a cold, rational world. It’s the real one. The Celtics wouldn’t trade Tatum for anything. That’s bigger than basketball. He’s their guy. He’s won them a championship. So a Celtics trade would have to revolve around Jaylen Brown, and it’s just hard to imagine that would be enough to entice the Bucks. Maybe if Derrick White is attached as well, but that would leave the Celtics with two MVP candidates, one of whom is coming off of a torn Achilles, and a very thin supporting cast beyond them. That’s just never been how they operate, so the Celtics are a long shot.
Tyrese Maxey is going to get MVP votes. He and VJ Edgecombe have a remarkably bright future together. The albatross contracts Philadelphia gave to Paul George and Joel Embiid could very easily ruin that future. The 76ers are so deep at guard that they could plausibly talk themselves into building an offer around Edgecombe and picks (including some increasingly valuable Clipper picks) if it meant not only getting Antetokounmpo, but getting off of one of those huge contracts. Could a team built around Maxey, Antetokounmpo and Quentin Grimes, perhaps with George still on in a supporting role, win the East? Absolutely. But Daryl Morey cold threw cold water on a very hot seat by drafting Edgecombe in the first place. Does he really want to turn the heat back up by going all-in again? The answer is probably no. There will be easier ways to address those giant contracts, ideally when a bit more time has ticked off of them.
A few weeks ago, the Magic might have been open to flipping Franz Wagner or Paolo Banchero for Giannis. They’ve since righted the ship, winning eight of their last 10. But man, the ingredients are here: a high-level scoring guard (Desmond Bane), a big man who can shoot (Wendell Carter Jr.) and an ace perimeter defender (Jalen Suggs). The Bucks would probably want Banchero, but his contract is far more difficult to move. It has a poison pill thanks to the extension he signed over the summer, whereas Wagner just has a big cap number that could cover most of the salary-matching requirements. Banchero would have to be dealt alongside several teammates. But Wagner has flat out been the better player of the two this season. If the Bucks see a potential future star there, maybe they’d be open to a deal centered around him, Orlando’s last tradable first-round pick (in 2032) and rapidly ascending young guard Anthony Black. Would the Magic rather be the Eastern Conference favorites here and now, or keep their youth and flexibility for a longer run? That’s the question. I expect the answer to be the latter.
Tier VI: Right market, wrong time
13. Chicago Bulls
12. Brooklyn Nets
Last week, a report by ESPN suggested that the Bulls are trying to emulate the Pacers. They think they have their Tyrese Haliburton in Josh Giddey, and now they want their Pascal Siakam. Well, Antetokounmpo could be a supercharged version of Siakam, and Nikola Vučević’s shooting would obviously pair nicely with a downhill force like Giannis. The Bulls have Matas Buzelis and all of their picks at their disposal. They could make a competitive offer. But would they really be contenders after a trade like that? Not with their current defense, and frankly, Antetokounmpo has always needed a better offensive teammate than Giddey as well. Giddey is a transition force, but like Antetokounmpo, isn’t a traditional half-court creator for late in games. It’s tempting, but the Bulls just aren’t good enough.
The Nets emphatically aren’t good enough. That was never the point. Antetokounmpo has been linked to them for so long because they have two things: assets and the right market. The idea would be to land Antetokounmpo, use the remainder of your trade assets on another star and go from there. If this supporting cast had meaningfully developed any youth, that would be tempting. But the truth here is, this team isn’t two stars away. There are still too many questions about the supporting cast, especially since so much of the meager incumbent talent would presumably be traded. If the Nets had drafted a star last year or done a better job of cultivating longer-term, starter-level depth, this would be a conversation. The timing just isn’t right here. If Antetokounmpo wanted to wait a few more years, he wouldn’t be rattling this cage in December. That this is happening now suggests that he wants to contend for the 2026 title. That isn’t happening in Brooklyn.
Tier V: And the gold medal in cap gymnastics goes to…
11. Cleveland Cavaliers
It would be functionally impossible for the Cavaliers to do this without gutting their team. They’re $22 million above the second apron, and they can’t aggregate salary unless they get below it. They’d have to do so because no one on their team makes as much as Antetokounmpo, and their first apron restrictions mean they can’t take in more salary than they send out in a trade. They’re not gutting their team for Anthony Davis or one of the guards floating around. But Antetokounmpo? That’s at least worth the conversation, right? Say Evan Mobley, the 24-year-old reigning Defensive Player of the Year, would suffice as a return for the Bucks. He makes around $8 million less than Antetokounmpo does, so the Cavaliers would have to send out another $30 million or so to make the math work. That’s two of Jarrett Allen, Max Strus and De’Andre Hunter, though they could take back some more salary, and they’d have to send someone to another team who could absorb the money. If the two sides are motivated enough here, there’s a potential deal in which the Bucks send both Antetokounmpo and Turner to Cleveland for Mobley, take back two of the role players and send the third into Brooklyn’s cap space. Immensely complicated, but doable. Cleveland probably isn’t ready to take that sort of plunge, but hey, Koby Altman has made aggressive moves in the past. It’s hard to imagine he won’t at least consider something like this.
Tier IV: Are you willing to gamble on a rental?
10. Toronto Raptors
9. Indiana Pacers
8. Atlanta Hawks
Toronto was linked to Antetokounmpo for years when Masai Ujiri ran the team. He’s now gone, but the team is playing better than it has in quite some time. Of course, that doesn’t seem sustainable at least on a postseason level. The Raptors dominate in transition and with their bench units, two traits that tend not to translate especially well to the playoffs, and they’ve played the fourth-easiest schedule in the league to date. The Raptors won a championship renting Kawhi Leonard. Ujiri was the general manager who made that trade, but everyone in the building surely remembers it. Toronto has all of its picks to trade and a deep group of supporting pieces. They’d probably need to add more shooting either in this deal or a separate one, but this is the sort of team that should be considering a high-risk, high-reward rental. They have no championship upside otherwise.
The Pacers obviously do. They also have bad blood with Antetokounmpo amid a rivalry that has developed over the past few seasons. But who cares? If Chris Paul can play for the Warriors, anyone can play for anyone. Aside from fitting into Indiana’s up-tempo style, the concept of adding a high-usage star might actually appeal to the Pacers as a way to ease Tyrese Haliburton back into the lineup next year. Indiana could build a package around Pascal Siakam and a bunch of draft picks, including this year’s pick, which looks very valuable at the moment, but becomes less so if Indiana traded for Giannis. A move like this would be pretty out of character for the Pacers, who are a fairly conservative organization, but how many chances do you get to trade for an MVP? A move like this could give them control of the Eastern Conference for several years. They have to at least consider it, especially with so much uncertainty in their front court following Turner’s departure.
The Hawks technically control Milwaukee’s 2026 first-round pick, though they are far likelier to get the even better New Orleans pick in the upcoming draft. They also sort of control Milwaukee’s 2027 pick. They get the lesser of Milwaukee’s and New Orleans’ picks next year, provided they aren’t both in the top four. Considering both teams will probably be bad, but the odds of both picks winding up in the top four is low, that’s going to be a pretty good pick if it conveys. The question here is what sort of timeline Atlanta wants to operate under. They’re now 12-5 without Trae Young. This team of young, athletic wings is thriving, and that 2026 New Orleans pick gives them a shot at a franchise player on a rookie deal. There’s a world in which the Hawks have a decade of contention ahead of them. Do they want to mess with that to potentially become Eastern Conference favorites for a shorter period? What would the trade even look like? Young has long-needed a star big like Antetokounmpo as a teammate to protect him defensively, but would Antetokounmpo want to play with someone so ball-dominant? Would the Bucks want Young? Would they demand that incredible Pelicans pick, and would the Hawks give it up? Jalen Johnson is the best player on the team. He also clashes stylistically a fair bit with Giannis, though his improvement as a shooter this year is notable. You could construct half a dozen viable trade packages here. It’s just a matter of how interested Antetokounmpo would be in the Hawks, and how eager Atlanta would be to fast forward through the early portion of this (very promising) retool.
Tier III: Old Money
7. Miami Heat
6. Golden State Warriors
5. Los Angeles Lakers
Agents love packaging their best clients. Antetokounmpo is represented by Alex Saratsis, whose second-best client happens to be Bam Adebayo. That means he would probably be off-limits, but anything else the Heat could offer would be on the table. Miami’s pick situation is a tad complicated, as the 2027 pick they owe Charlotte rules out their 2026 or 2028 picks in trades thanks to the Stepien Rule. However, the Heat could dangle swap rights in 2026, 2028, 2030 and 2032 along with outright picks in 2029 and 2031. Not a bad start from a draft perspective, especially since the Bucks already owe swaps in three of those years. Kel’El Ware has All-Star upside, and Tyler Herro is an actual All-Star from Wisconsin. Is this the best trade package we’ve covered here? No. But what the player and agent want usually means quite a bit in these situations, and the Heat will probably be on Antetokounmpo’s list.
The Warriors have been eyeing Antetokounmpo for years. Well, the Warriors have been eyeing everyone for years. No team draws more “is monitoring star X” reports than they do, but hey, when you have Stephen Curry as a selling point, it makes sense to shoot for the stars. The Warriors have most of their picks to dangle. They’d have to work around the top-20 protected 2030 pick they owe the Wizards, but that’s doable. The Warriors can still trade the valuable portion of that pick as well as all of their others, and the notion of deep future Warriors picks, which will presumably convey after Curry retires, is probably pretty appealing to the Bucks. The bigger question here is matching salary. The Warriors could easily match money with Jimmy Butler, who is conveniently a dollar-for-dollar match with Giannis. The Bucks wouldn’t want Butler, though, so he’d have to go to a third team. If last year’s saga taught us anything, it’s that he’d be particularly about which teams he’d be willing to go to. There’s another version of this deal built around Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga and more salary, but aside from giving away a franchise icon, it would mean gutting the team’s depth. This would take some negotiation, but if Antetokounmpo wants the Warriors, they’re a viable destination.
The Lakers would have been a laughable Giannis destination a year ago. Two things have happened since. First, we were reminded of Lakers Exceptionalism when they swiped Luka Dončić for pennies on the dollar. Second, Austin Reaves has ascended into clear All-Star status. He is a viable centerpiece for a trade like this now, but there are still a few problems. The first is salary. He makes only around $14 million. That means the Lakers could have to add another $40 million or so just to make the money work. They have the contracts to do so, but it would cost them most of their depth. Second, Reaves is an impending unrestricted free agent who is basically impossible to extend given his low 2026 cap number. That means the Bucks would have to hope he’d be willing to re-sign over the summer, when several more desirable cap space teams could come knocking. Is that a risk they’re willing to take?
And then there’s the matter of draft compensation. The Lakers can trade only one first-round pick now, in either 2031 or 2032. Over the summer, that figure jumps to three, but Reaves will be a free agent by then. He’d have to cooperate in a sign-and-trade, which he’d have no incentive to do. So really, the Lakers would have to hope that Reaves could be sold on a future in Milwaukee and that the Bucks would be amenable to a deal in which they received only one pick outright along with several swaps. Feasible? Only if Antetokounmpo forces the issue. Stars do that for the Lakers all of the time. We have no indication yet that he will be one of them. Remember, even if the Lakers don’t actually get Antetokounmpo, they’re still a meaningful player in these negotiations. They’re the boogeyman, the team with 2027 cap space that Giannis would be able to point to in order to scare off unwanted suitors. “Trade for me and I’ll sign with the Lakers.” That might not get him to Los Angeles or anywhere, but it’s going to be a factor in how all of this plays out.
Tier II: Nouveau Riche
4. Detroit Pistons
3. Houston Rockets
2. San Antonio Spurs
These are the teams that the Bucks want to trade with. They have the most assets. They are all capable of winning the championship with Antetokounmpo here and now, provided they can keep most of their current core. Considering the youth and picks all three have to trade, that shouldn’t be a problem. The issue at play isn’t whether or not they can trade for Giannis. It’s whether or not they should want to. All three are so early into their windows. All three are positioned to win for a long time, to have more bites at the apple, and to perhaps take those bites in years in which Oklahoma City isn’t quite this dominant, that they might prefer not to go all-in for a 31-year-old that has dealt with nagging injuries and has a playing style that is pretty reliant on athleticism.
The Pistons have all of their own picks to trade, but how valuable would picks from an Antetokounmpo-Cade Cunningham team really be? They’d have to send substantial player value as well. Their two best assets, aside from Cunningham, are Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson. Both, as non-shooters, are iffy fits next to Antetokounmpo anyway. But Duren is a 22-year-old possible first-time All-Star, and Thompson is one of the best athletes in the entire league. You could argue that they cumulatively have the potential to give the Pistons the same things Giannis would. Detroit is already a dominant rim team, scoring more points in the paint than anyone in the league while allowing the fourth-fewest. Could Detroit get away with sending one of them alongside former lottery pick Jaden Ivey, who’s seemingly getting usurped in the pecking order by Daniss Jenkins? Maybe, but the Pistons still rank 28th in the NBA in 3-point attempt rate. They’d have to change a lot of what they do offensively to suit Antetokounmpo. Is that worth it for a 17-4 team with a long runway ahead of it?
Pretty much everything I just wrote about the Pistons applies to the Rockets. They even have a Thompson twin they’d prefer not to trade and a young star center in Alperen Sengun. They’d have an easier time trading for Antetokounmpo considering all of the valuable, external picks they control (most notably from Phoenix), but their salary structure is far less forgiving than Detroit’s. The Rockets are pressed up against their first-apron hard cap, and unless Kevin Durant is in the deal, they’d have to include multiple big contracts to make the money work. Fred VanVleet’s cap figure helps, but remember, he has the right to veto any trade. Jabari Smith has a poison pill that makes him difficult to trade, and Reed Sheppard would have to stay solely to give Antetokounmpo some shooting to work with. It would be an extraordinarily difficult trade to construct, likely centered around Sengun, and it would mean breaking up a team that currently ranks third in defense, second in offense and first in rebounding. Considering Durant’s age, the Rockets would be pushing a ton of chips in for the next couple of years, when the Thunder will presumably be at their strongest. Is that really wise?
Of these three teams, San Antonio is probably the best-positioned for balance. They have two possible star guards on rookie deals in Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle. They can probably afford to trade one, especially since neither of them nor De’Aaron Fox are star shooters. Victor Wembanyama might be the best player in the league for the next decade or more. He might have injury issues that compromise San Antonio’s long-term plans. The Spurs have accumulated enough draft value, particularly in the form of swaps, to keep adding cheap youth even after making a trade of this magnitude. Wembanyama and Antetokounmpo would be the best rim-protecting duo in the NBA, maybe even in history. Their skill sets mesh reasonably well, and the Spurs probably wouldn’t mind lowering Wembanyama’s usage a bit to protect his body. The Spurs are below the tax and still two seasons away from Wembanyama’s inevitable max extension. They’re financially flexible, and they’re 14-6. They clearly think they’re ready to at least be competitive in the playoffs now. With Giannis, that ceiling only gets raised higher. The Spurs, like the Rockets and Pistons, could absolutely justify sitting these talks out and playing the long game. But they have more to gain in the short term, and thanks to the presence of arguably the best 21-year-old the league has ever seen, less to lose in the long term by making this deal.
Tier I: The heart wants what it wants
1. New York Knicks
When Antetokounmpo explored a trade over the summer, his preferred destination was New York. The Knicks are the only team known to have discussed a trade with Milwaukee before the season started. When a star wants to go somewhere specific, he can make things very uncomfortable for other suitors. Remember how we covered the Lakers as a boogeyman? If Giannis wants to be a Knick badly enough, he’ll use the Lakers to scare any other team off. The Clippers and Nets could serve that same function. He’s not short on leverage, as Damian Lillard was with three guaranteed years left on his deal when he tried to force his way to Miami in 2023.
So Antetokounmpo has control. The question is how much of it he’s willing to exert. The Knicks don’t come close to having the best trade package. Right now, they don’t have a single, guaranteed first-round pick to deal. They have Washington’s pick this year… except it’s top-eight protected and becomes second-rounders when it inevitably doesn’t convey. They can offer swaps in even-numbered years, which is again valuable as the Bucks owe swaps to other teams in 2026, 2028 and 2030 already. But that only gets them so far. The bulk of the value here would have to come through players.
And that’s where things get difficult. All of New York’s best players are in their late 20s or early 30s. What would the Bucks really be building if they traded Antetokounmpo for Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges? A 40-win team that could hang around the Play-In Tournament as they wait out all of the future draft picks they owe other teams? That’s not exactly appealing. Maybe they could flip those veterans for picks elsewhere, but they wouldn’t net close to the amount a player of Antetokounmpo’s caliber typically should. There are minor negotiating points here. The Knicks would rather keep OG Anunoby than Bridges. They’d love to hold onto Deuce McBride. The Bucks would justifiably start negotiations by demanding everything the Knicks could offer. Even New York’s best package would be pretty underwhelming. If Bridges is involved, it would also be pretty time-consuming. He isn’t eligible for a trade until Feb. 1 thanks to the extension he signed over the summer.
What would the Knicks be with Antetokounmpo? That’s hard to say. They’d almost certainly be better. Having two of the 10 best players in the NBA is a pretty good starting point. But a lot of their role players, most notably Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson, make more sense on a Towns team because of their limitations as shooters. Could the Knicks make follow-up trades to rebalance the roster? Or would their talent be overwhelming enough to win in spite of those weaknesses? Could they convince the Bucks to take the players they’d no longer need in exchange for different supporting pieces? Milwaukee likely won’t be too eager to do New York any favors if this comes to pass.
The Bucks don’t want to trade with the Knicks. They want to trade with the Pistons, Spurs or Rockets. It just may not be up to them. If Antetokounmpo forces their hand and no viable rental alternative emerges, there’s a good chance this ends with the Knicks getting a two-time MVP at a bargain-basement price.
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