After 13 Seasons, Giannis Antetokounmpo Is Leaving Milwaukee

Published May 12, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

Milwaukee selected Giannis Antetokounmpo with the 15th pick in the 2013 NBA Draft. He was 18, had grown up in the Sepolia neighborhood of Athens in a Yoruba-Nigerian family, and had played very little organized basketball before the Bucks took a chance on him. He wasn’t physically finished. He wasn’t a finished player in any sense. What the Bucks believed in was his movement, his length, and whatever was behind his eyes when he watched tape.

Thirteen years later, he’s leaving. The Bucks are “open for business” on a trade, per ESPN’s Shams Charania. Co-owner Jimmy Haslam has said publicly that he expects a resolution before the NBA Draft on June 23, either a trade or an extension. The extension is the polite word to include. Everything else about how this situation has developed points toward a trade.

What he built

Two MVP awards, 2018-19 and 2019-20. Back-to-back, which puts him in a list with Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Moses Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and a small number of others. Four Defensive Player of the Year awards across his career. And the championship.

June 2021. The Bucks defeated the Phoenix Suns four games to two. Giannis averaged 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 5.0 assists in the Finals on 61.8 percent shooting from the field. He blocked Chris Paul’s late layup in Game 6 with Milwaukee protecting a lead and the series on the line. The Bucks had not won a title since 1971, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 24 and Oscar Robertson was still on the team. Fifty years of waiting ended in a single postseason, built around a kid from Athens who couldn’t legally buy a beer in the United States when he was drafted.

The franchise honored him correctly. They built Fiserv Forum partly around the premise that he would be their anchor for a decade. They paid him the supermax. They brought in Jrue Holiday, traded for Khris Middleton, hired Mike Budenholzer, and then Monty Williams after Budenholzer moved on. The plan was a dynasty. The plan didn’t work.

What broke

The fracture was public by early 2026. Late in the regular season, the Bucks shut Giannis down with a knee injury. The decision became a source of friction almost immediately. Giannis reportedly disagreed with how the organization managed the situation. He triggered a league investigation into the franchise over the circumstances of the shutdown, a formal action that means something different than a player expressing frustration in a press conference. Teams and their star players disagree all the time. Players don’t spark league investigations of their own organizations when things are salvageable.

By the time the Bucks were bounced from the 2026 playoffs, the relationship was done. Giannis communicated to the organization that he was ready to be traded. He hasn’t filed a formal trade request, but the distinction between “made clear he wants out” and “formal request” is largely procedural at this point. Milwaukee began taking calls.

The deadline and the preference

Haslam wants this done before June 23. That’s six weeks. It gives Giannis enough leverage to signal where he wants to go, because his ability to sign an extension with the acquiring team makes a significant financial difference for any franchise bidding for his services.

He reportedly prefers to land in the Eastern Conference. The reasons are geographic in part: staying in the East keeps him closer to his homes in Milwaukee and Greece. But there’s a playoff-bracket component too. The Western Conference in 2026 runs through Oklahoma City and San Antonio, both formidable. An Eastern path to the Finals avoids both.

He has also reportedly signaled preferences among specific destinations, and while different sources name different teams, the consistent thread is: a contender, in the East, with a championship infrastructure already in place.

The teams

Boston Celtics. Giannis has been publicly complimentary toward Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla in a way that goes beyond standard pre-game respect. Boston has young assets and picks from their championship seasons and remains a blue-chip NBA destination with ownership willing to spend. The complication is roster fit: three ball-dominant players in Tatum, Brown, and Giannis creates defensive and spacing challenges that a front office would need to solve, not just hope away.

New York Knicks. Giannis has reportedly signaled interest in New York in the past. The Knicks are currently the hottest team in the Eastern Conference playoffs, running the best two-round point differential in 43 years of the 16-team format. Adding Giannis to a team with Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and OG Anunoby would be the most disruptive single move of the offseason.

Miami Heat. Florida has no state income tax, which at Giannis’s salary level is a meaningful number. The Heat’s organizational culture and Pat Riley’s track record building championship environments are real draws. Miami would need to restructure significantly to absorb a Giannis trade, but they’ve done complicated roster surgery before.

Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves are also in the conversation, though both are Western Conference destinations that Giannis reportedly wants to avoid.

What Milwaukee gets back

This is the piece that will determine whether the Bucks rebuild or deteriorate. Giannis at 31, still capable of Defensive Player of the Year-level performance with years left on his contract, commands genuine assets in return. The acquiring team is getting a top-five player in the world. Milwaukee’s ask should reflect that.

What the Bucks need is picks and young players, not a finished veteran they’d be trading lateral value for. Their roster outside Giannis needs significant work. Their market limits their free-agent flexibility. But the picks from a Giannis trade could fund a second rebuild the way the late 2010s draft capital funded the one that produced 2021.

What worked once can work again. It just takes time, and whoever they trust to run the front office next will matter more than any individual piece coming back in the deal.

The 18-year-old from Sepolia grew into something Milwaukee hadn’t seen since the Kareem era. The trade will be a franchise-level moment, and it will be uncomfortable in the way endings are uncomfortable. None of that makes it wrong.

Sources

• ESPN, ‘Sources: Bucks Seeking Trade Offers for Giannis Antetokounmpo’
• CBS Sports, ‘Giannis Trade Rumors: Bucks Are Open for Business’
• CBS Sports, ‘Giannis Reportedly Wants to Stay in East: Which Teams Make Most Sense?’
• Yahoo Sports, ‘Giannis Trade Rumors Tracker: Celtics, Knicks, More Teams Interested’
• Yardbarker, ‘Giannis Expected to Push Trade Toward Preferred Destination’
• Basketball-Reference, Giannis Antetokounmpo Career Stats