Giannis Antetokounmpo shared a sobering truth about contention in the NBA, remarking that even he could get traded if the Bucks don’t win another title.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the defining faces of the current generation of basketball, but the perennial MVP candidate hasn’t been able to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to Playoff success the last few years. While speaking with The Athletic, Giannis frankly spoke about the potential of the Bucks looking to trade him away if the team keeps suffering first-round exits in the Playoffs.
“If we don’t win this year, would you get fired? Do you have it in the back of your mind, like, ‘(What) if this year doesn’t go well?’ Yeah, if we don’t win a championship, I might get traded. Yeah, this is the job we live. This is the world we’re living in. It’s everybody.”
“On a serious note, this is the job. It’s the profession that we’re in. At any given moment, if you don’t succeed, that might be it for us. It was the same way with the previous coaching staff, and the year before, the players before. … If you don’t do a good enough job, you’re out.”
Antetokounmpo averaged 30.4 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 6.5 assists last season, but injuries meant he couldn’t contribute to the team in the Playoffs for the second season in a row. Even Giannis is aware he can’t let his prime years go to waste due to poorly-timed injuries.
“This year, a challenge for me is to be healthy,” he said. “A challenge for me is to play in the playoffs, to get out of the f—— first round. Assert myself even more… Every year for me is important because one day, I’m going to be 35 or 36 or 38 and I’m going to be like, ‘Oh, my prime just went, and I wasn’t able to do something.’ So dominate.”
If Giannis continues to get injured before the Playoffs, the Bucks will have to consider alternatives to contention. With the aging assets on the roster, Giannis might just be the best chip in their arsenal to restock the franchise’s future with either young players or draft picks.
It might seem laughable to suggest that a player of Giannis’ caliber can get traded, but there is always that possibility looming over the player and the franchise.
The Bucks have exhausted all future assets, so to recover anything of value to build a contender in the post-Giannis era, they’ll likely need to trade their players to replenish those assets. Giannis would fetch incredible value as a former MVP and Finals MVP, but he’s also the greatest development story in franchise history and could be one of the few superstars to spend his entire career with just one franchise.
It would be direspectful to suggest the Bucks should trade Giannis this year or the next to try and build a future contender. They already have one of the five-best players in the NBA and if they can’t build a title-worthy roster around him, there’s no guarantee that they can find the pieces required to win a title all over again.
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