We have three days to go before the NBA trade deadline arrives, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, at least for this moment, is still a Milwaukee Buck. There are a number of teams working diligently to change that, but four have stood out as the most frequently mentioned in the reporting surrounding his potential availability this week: the New York Knicks, Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves.
All four, at least for the time being, have not offered a compelling enough package. If the Bucks had found a deal they were prepared to make today, we’d likely know about it. Realistically, most of these teams are probably going to need to canvass the rest of the league for help in consummating a deal.
So today, we’re going to try to mock out what possible trades involving these teams might look like, and we’re going to keep in mind that, in all likelihood, none of these teams are getting a deal done alone. They’re all going to need help. That has less to do with outbidding each other and more to do with beating the status quo. Antetokounmpo is under contract for the 2026-27 season. The Bucks don’t have to trade him right now. They can and probably should wait until the offseason to do so. More teams can enter the fray at that point. These teams will have an extra pick to trade. And the Bucks will have a better idea of what sort of rebuilding plans are available to them once the season is over.
What we’re looking for, therefore, is the best possible packages these teams can muster. These deals are meant to hurt. They’re meant to deprive the teams in question of enough asset value that they genuinely wonder if they even should pursue such a deal, because that’s what it’s going to take to convince the Bucks to act now. So below are four mock trades for our four Giannis favorites.
One quick note before we begin: realistically, there’s a good chance Thanasis Antetokounmpo follows his brother wherever he goes. However, these trades are, in many cases, enormously complicated from a cap perspective and therefore delicate enough that I didn’t want to disturb any of them with an extra minimum salary. So I left him out. Use your own imagination as to how he gets to his next team. Maybe the Bucks waive him. Maybe he just signs there next summer.
New York Knicks
- Knicks receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kelly Olynyk
- Spurs receive: OG Anunoby
- Trail Blazers receive: Mikal Bridges, Jeremy Sochan
- Nets receive: 2030 first-round swap rights (via Knicks)
- Bucks receive: Jerami Grant, Harrison Barnes, Guerschon Yabusele, Tyler Kolek, seven first-round picks (2026 more favorable of Hawks/Spurs, 2026 via Wizards top-eight protected, 2027 via Knicks, 2028 via Magic, 2028 more favorable of Celtics/Spurs, 2030 more favorable of Bucks/Blazers, 2031 more favorable of Spurs/Kings), 2032 first-round swap rights (via Knicks)
Yes, we are jumping right off the bat here with a five-team trade. The Knicks, with very little draft capital available, are going to have to shop their incumbent players to create the picks the Bucks are going to need to consider a deadline deal. In a perfect world, they’d trade Karl-Anthony Towns and one of their wings to get that value. Just one problem: there doesn’t appear to be much interest in Towns, now 30 and with two years left on his supermax deal. The Ahtletic’s James Edwards reported that, were Towns shopped, “the return is expected to be salary-matching players and, maybe, small draft compensation.”
If this is going to happen for New York, the Knicks are probably going to have to deal both OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges to get the value they’ll need. Whether or not they should do that is another matter. It would leave the Knicks with a gaping hole on the wing. This might scare New York off. However, the idea of an offense featuring Antetokounmpo, Towns and Jalen Brunson is tantalizing. Between Antetokounmpo, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson and Deuce McBride, the Knicks would still have a fair bit of defensive talent. Right now, we’re not evaluating what the Knicks should do. Just what it would take to make a deal possible. So we press forward, looking for teams willing to pay substantial draft ammunition for Anunoby and Bridges.
Anunoby is the better player of the two and certainly the more versatile defensively. Neither of them are netting the five first-round picks Bridges got the Nets two years ago, but three is a reasonable approximation of Anunoby’s value. We’ll get them from San Antonio. The Spurs have a draft surplus, and the idea of slotting Anunoby onto the league’s No. 3 defense should absolutely terrify the Western Conference. Those picks from San Antonio all conveniently happen to carry valuable swap rights. The Bucks would be getting a possible lottery pick from Atlanta this year, an admittedly underwhelming Celtics/Spurs pick in 2028, and then, the golden ticket, unfettered control over Sacramento’s 2031 first-round pick. Yes, San Antonio would obviously prefer to keep that pick, but remember, the Spurs also have double-swap rights on the Mavericks and Timberwolves in 2030. They have another lottery ticket to hold onto at roughly that point in the future. They have such a surplus of youth that they can afford to dip into their pick pool. Go win the championship here and now.
Portland is our taker for Bridges, and he comes at the more modest price of two first-round picks. One of those, though, is Milwaukee’s own 2030 pick. No picks are more valuable to a team than its own, for reasons I explained in more depth here. The other is less valuable, but still interesting: Orlando’s unprotected 2028 pick, which Portland grabbed on draft night last year. The Blazers would still have the bulk of their valuable Milwaukee draft capital, but in Bridges, they’d be adding yet another strong perimeter defender and supporting scorer. If their goal is to start making the playoffs, this helps them do that without sacrificing most of the upside those Bucks picks give them later.
So… what are the Nets doing here? Well, there’s a mutually beneficial side deal we can slip into this trade. The Nets know that the Knicks are going to be good next season if they have Antetokounmpo. Therefore, New York’s 2027 pick isn’t especially valuable to them, so they ship it to the Bucks. In exchange, however, the Nets get unprotected swap rights with the Knicks in 2030, when they’re likely to have started declining. Could the Bucks take those swap rights? Sure, but if they’re trading for their own pick back in 2030, they’ll know they have the ability to tank for a high pick if they need one, so those added swap rights likely mean less than a front office eager to start adding young pieces sooner. So the 2027 Knicks pick, even if it’s late, likely holds some appeal. Besides, we’re giving the Bucks 2032 swap rights with the Knicks as well, so Milwaukee still has a share of New York’s eventual demise locked up.
And our last pick is one New York already owns: Washington’s top-eight protected pick in 2026. Now, calling that a first-round pick is a tad disingenuous. The Wizards will tank hard enough not to convey that pick, so really, the Bucks are getting six first-round picks, not seven. However, if that pick doesn’t convey, it reverts to Washington’s second-rounders in 2026 and 2027. This year, at least, that means one of the first picks of the second round, so almost another first-rounder with a second pick coming next year. All in all, it’s a balanced and diverse package of picks headed back to Milwaukee, and probably the best New York can hope to muster without giving away too much depth to plausibly compete for this year’s championship.
Golden State Warriors
- Warriors receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anfernee Simons, Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, Xavier Tillman
- Celtics receive: Draymond Green, Al Horford, 2027 first-round swap rights (via Warriors)
- Bucks receive: Jimmy Butler, Jonathan Kuminga, Buddy Hield, Brandin Podziemski, Chris Boucher, Will Richard, five first-round picks (2026 via Celtics, 2026 via Warriors, 2028 via Warriors, 2030 via Warriors protected 21-30, 2032 via Warriors), 2031 first-round swap rights (via Warriors)
We all know the basics of the Golden State package by now. The Warriors are betting that the Bucks want control of their first-round picks after Stephen Curry retires badly enough to trade them Giannis. They’ll also pick up Jonathan Kuminga and Brandin Podziemski for their trouble, but really, this deal is about picks. And what the Bucks are inevitably telling the Warriors right now is “go get us more of them.”
The Warriors only have more player potentially capable of generating a first-round pick’s worth of trade value: Draymond Green. While Green isn’t quite the Defensive Player of the Year candidate he was a year ago, he remains an immensely capable defensive player capable of guarding centers and switching onto anyone. That’s a skill Boston prizes. It’s one Al Horford gave them for years. Speaking of which, cue the Coming Home montage because Horford is returning to Boston to finish his career in green with this deal. Boston reinvents its frontcourt, setting up a defensive behemoth for the postseason. As the cherry on top, the Celtics are able to extract first-round swap rights from Golden State next season.
In exchange, the Warriors get Boston’s 2026 first-round pick to send to the Bucks. However, they also get Anfernee Simons. That’s no small loss for Boston, owners of the second-best offense in basketball this season. Simons has become an important part of that offense, but the hope here would be that Jayson Tatum’s return would be able to offset the production lost by dealing Simons. Part of the reason beefing up the frontcourt matters so much is as a protection mechanism for Tatum. The last thing Boston should want is for Tatum to guard centers or especially physical wings while he’s not at 100% physically. A roster with Derrick White, Jordan Walsh, Jaylen Brown and Draymond Green protects him from basically any sort of problematic matchups while making the Celtics as a whole even scarier in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Since they’re only giving up a 2026 pick, they’re not really harming their future here either. They’re taking on an extra year of money, so this would require Boston’s new ownership to be willing to pay the repeater tax basically indefinitely. If that’s the case though, the idea would be to trade for Green now as a win-now measure while keeping the rest of their draft powder dry.
The Warriors would be without a traditional center in this scenario. Antetokounmpo might have to guard them. Maybe they could revive Tillman. More likely, they’d have to figure out a center solution over the summer. Count me as one of the last people who believes Kyle Kuzma is salvageable, and I think Steve Kerr is the coach to do it. They overlapped briefly with Team USA, and at least his younger self would have enjoyed Kerr’s read-and-react, movement-heavy offense. He hasn’t exactly had the most creative coaching in his career, but he theoretically has skills the Warriors tend to maximize. Portis’ scoring is just a nice bench touch.
The defense would be a bit of a struggle. That’s a lot to put on Antetokounmpo and Moses Moody. The bench guards can defend, but the lack of reliable defensive size would be an issue. The Warriors would be banking on the Curry-Antetokounmpo paring be so offensively potent that they could overcome it.
Once-in-a-lifetime pairing: Stephen Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo would be a match made in basketball heaven
Brad Botkin
Just for fun, I did consider a slightly altered version of this deal. In that version, the Kings, eager to get off of money for next season, would send Zach LaVine to Golden State to join Curry and Antetokounmpo and take on Simons and Kuzma to make the money work. It’s a fun concept, one that would make the Warriors unstoppable on offense, and it’s doable financially. Remember, Butler makes the exact same amount of money as Antetokounmpo, so if the Warriors are also sending out Kuminga, Green and depth, they’d have a lot of money to play with to take in more talent. The Kings would be so eager to get off of LaVine’s contract that they’d participate without asking for draft compensation. Ultimately, I decided Simons offered almost as much offensive punch, and the Warriors probably wouldn’t want three max salaries on their books, so I scrapped it. It’s a fun concept, though. In any sort of lopsided Giannis deal, the Warriors would be able to hunt around the league for any bad money they think makes basketball sense for their new team.
Miami Heat
- Heat receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton, 2027 first-round pick (via Heat)
- Hornets receive: Andrew Wiggins, 2029 first-round swap rights (via Heat)
- Bucks receive: Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier, Josh Green, Nikola Jović, Kel’El Ware, Kasparas Jakučionis, four first-round picks (2026, 2028, 2030, 2032 via Heat), 2031 first-round swap rights (via Heat)
Miami, like Golden State, is relying on Milwaukee being interested in its first-round picks. Small problem: the Heat don’t have all of their own first-round picks. The Hornets control their 2027 pick, which in turn makes it impossible for the Heat to trade either their 2026 or 2028 selections because of the Stepien Rule. We therefore need a workaround, a way for the Heat to get that 2027 pick back so it can then send Milwaukee four first-round picks.
Here’s my solution: the Hornets are fortunately good enough to consider doing some light buying at the trade deadline. While center would probably be their preferred spending area, Andrew Wiggins would give them a very valuable two-way wing. Either they could stack him on top of everything they have, or, if they prefer, they could try to trade Miles Bridges for a replacement first-round pick elsewhere as has been rumored regardless of this mock deal. Wiggins is the superior player anyway. As the Hornets currently have three 2027 first-round picks (including their own and Dallas’ top-two protected selection), spending one now probably makes sense. We’ll throw in 2029 swap rights, when Charlotte’s core players figure to be peaking, as an extra incentive for the Hornets.
So, with Miami’s 2027 pick back, the Heat are equipped to send Milwaukee their next four even-year picks plus 2031 swap rights. That’s less draft capital than the other deals we’ve covered, and considering how highly regarded Miami’s organization is and how much younger their remaining players would be than Golden State’s, these are probably the least valuable picks we’ve covered here as well. The Heat have to make up for that with player and contract value. They’re fortunately able to do so.
Kel’El Ware is the prize of the deal. He’s an ultra-athletic, skilled big man on a rookie deal just brimming with potential. He hasn’t been a fit with Bam Adebayo thus far, but on a Bucks team with no other foundational pieces, Milwaukee could construct lineups to suit his needs. Herro is a Wisconsin native and former All-Star. He’s not exactly a franchise player, but he could help the Bucks remain competitive in years without their own draft picks while hopefully selling some tickets. Jakučionis and Jović are interesting enough young players to take fliers on. Green and Rozier help the Bucks get off of the worse contracts owed to Kuzma and Portis.
In a perfect world, the Heat would really prefer to keep Wiggins for their Antetokounmpo team. With those two, Adebayo and Davion Mitchell, the Heat would have an absolutely ferocious defense. Well, too bad. The Bucks need more draft value than the Heat can offer, so this is what it would take to push the Heat over the top. The Adebayo-Antetokounmpo-Mitchell defensive core would still be great, and they’d have first-time All-Star Norm Powell as another offensive engine. They wouldn’t be perfect, but they’d be a whole lot more imposing than they currently are.
Minnesota Timberwolves
- Timberwolves receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Myles Turner, Kyle Kuzma, Bobby Portis, Julian Phillips
- Hornets receive: Jaden McDaniels
- Celtics receive: Rudy Gobert
- Bulls receive: Julius Randle, Josh Green
- Bucks receive: Anfernee Simons, Naz Reid, Zach Collins, Kevin Huerter, Grant Williams, Sam Hauser, Dalen Terry, Joan Beringer, Terence Shannon Jr., Bones Hyland, five first-round picks (2026 via Hornets top-four protected, unprotected 2027, 2026 via Celtics, 2027 via Mavericks top-2 protected, 2027 via Bulls top-10 protected, top-eight protected in 2028 and 2029, reverts to 2029 and 2030 second-round picks thereafter, 2029 least favorable of Jazz/Cavaliers/Timberwolves), 2028 first-round swap rights (via Timberwolves)
Yes, you’re reading this correctly. We’re closing on a five-team, 19-player trade. That’s how complicated Minnesota’s pursuit of Antetokounmpo would be. If one domino falls, the entire deal falls apart. The Bucks would have to waive a staggering six players to make this legal. Fortunately, they happen to have six minimum salaries that are largely inconsequential to their futures, so farewell, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Amir Coffey, Andre Jackson, Taurean Prince, Gary Harris and Cole Anthony. So let’s dive in:
Minnesota’s path to Antetokounmpo is similar to New York’s. The Timberwolves don’t have draft capital to trade. They therefore have to go out into the market and find that value by trading their own players. There’s bad news and good news on that front. The bad news is that New York has two big-name wings to trade, and given the scarcity of wings on the market, those are the players that tend to generate the most value. The Timberwolves only have one, McDaniels. The good news is that McDaniels, being several years younger and a good deal cheaper than Anunoby or Bridges, would likely have a wider market than both of them, and while Minnesota’s front-court players aren’t netting huge packages, they’re so much cheaper than Towns that finding first-round picks for them feels doable.
Let’s start with McDaniels. We just covered Charlotte as a possible Wiggins destination, but that would be a minor, short-term upgrade. McDaniels is the sort of player you seriously dip into your draft surplus to get. The comparison here would be Desmond Bane to Orlando last summer. While Bane doesn’t look like a player you’d expect to net four first-round picks, he fit such a specific need for Orlando that the Magic paid a premium.
That should be McDaniels for either Charlotte or Utah. Both of them have draft surpluses. Both of them have awesome young offensive cores. Neither of them have a lick of perimeter defense. The chance to get a 25-year-old All-Defensive forward with untapped offensive potential is a godsend. I bet they’d both offer three picks. The Hornets give up two good ones: their own pick this year, likely to fall in the lottery, but protected for a top-four jump, and Dallas’ pick next year. The package is rounded out with a weak 2029 pick.
Gobert and Randle are trickier. For Gobert, the issue is age. He’s having a Defensive Player of the Year-caliber season. He’s also 33 years old, and it’s rare that even the best defensive bigs maintain this value much longer than that. We need a win-now team, so we turn again to Boston. The Celtics have had a ton of success this season with a screening, rim-running big man in Neemias Queta. Gobert is a better version of that player. Get him, even while giving up Simons and Hauser in addition to this year’s first-round pick, and the Celtics become an even bigger threat to win the East. As is the case with the Draymond trade we just pitched, they’d likely have to look elsewhere for a long-term solution, but the draft cost is low enough to make it worthwhile.
Randle’s problems are on defense and in terms of fit with other big names. He’s a high-usage power forward, and unless a team has a star at that position, teams typically prefer their power forwards to play defense, make 3s and make life easier for the guards that run their offense. Randle forces you to play differently, but he’s worked well enough with Anthony Edwards in Minnesota that the right team might still place meaningful value on him in a trade.
How about Chicago, seemingly still in search of the Pascal Siakam to Josh Giddey’s Tyrese Haliburton in their attempt to copy Indiana’s rebuild. Randle showed in New York what a strong offensive floor-raiser he could be, which the Bulls, whose ambitions really don’t extend beyond making the playoffs, might prize. We’ll have Chicago send out a moderately protected first-round pick to get this done. If Randle leads the Bulls to the Play-In Tournament at any point in the next few years, they’ll almost definitely hand the Bucks a pick. If the deal flops, they’re protected. Chicago’s hope would be to give the Bucks a pick in the teens or 20s in 2027. We’ll make the money work with only expiring deals.
So, between the Hornets, Celtics and Bulls, we’ve scrounged together five first-round picks for the Bucks. Now we talk about the player end of the equation. The Timberwolves have two pretty promising young players on rookie deals in Joan Beringer and Terence Shannon. That means the Bucks are asking for them. A swap of Naz Reid for Myles Turner actually makes sense for both sides. Reid is three years younger than Turner, so he’d be better for a rebuild in Milwaukee or easier to flip to another team. But the Timberwolves could really use Turner’s superior defense over Reid, so it makes sense for the two teams to trade centers. The other players are mostly just salary filler, largely on expiring deals. Hauser is a nice asset they could flip. They’d probably want to flip Simons at the deadline so as not to risk him helping them win unwanted games. But really, the Bucks would be turning over so much of their team on the fly that the lack of continuity alone would probably ensure they could tank in peace.
Once completed, this deal would turn Minnesota’s roster into a bizarre chimera of a team. It would effectively have Milwaukee’s present frontcourt of Antetokounmpo, Turner, Kuzma and Portis, but Minnesota’s incumbent backcourt of Anthony Edwards, Donte DiVincenzo and Mike Conley. I considered including the real-life rumored swap of Conley and Rob Dillingham for Malik Monk, but ultimately elected not to on the basis of Minnesota retaining some shred of continuity. Still, given the outgoing depth, the Timberwolves would probably be open to flipping Dillingham elsewhere for someone more immediately capable of contributing, as Conley’s steady hand would be more important for this year’s team.
Younger reserves like Jaylen Clark and Leonard Miller might have to step into real roles, and managing the depth for the next few years might be a challenge, but at the end of the day, the goal here is just putting Giannis Antetokounmpo and Anthony Edwards on the same team. There is enough supporting talent here for the Timberwolves to figure out the rest of the roster’s fit in the next year or so, especially since Minnesota would gain access to another tradable first-round pick this offseason. Tim Connelly is as bold as executives get. If he has a path to the Edwards-Antetokounmpo duo, you can bet he’ll take it.
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