Giannis Antetokounmpo trade winners and losers
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Dan DevineSenior writerTue, June 23, 2026 at 6:42 PM UTC·22 min readIt wasn't quite a Luka-for-AD-level middle of the night mind-melter, but when one of the 16 players in NBA history to win multiple Most Valuable Player trophies gets traded, it does tend to send shockwaves throughout the basketball-watching world … even if pretty much everyone had been expecting it for months (if not longer).
We awoke Tuesday in a world where Giannis Antetokounmpo is a member of the Miami Heat, where Tyler Herro headlines the package of players and picks heading over to the Milwaukee Bucks, and where plenty of interested parties on the outside looking in — most notably, the Boston Celtics — find themselves moving on to Plan B. The reverberations from this one will be felt far and wide; let's start getting our arms around it.
AdvertisementAdvertisementWhat follows is a stab at a first draft of history — a thumbnail sketch of who and what seems to have been helped and hurt by the wee-hours dealings between Miami and Milwaukee. We begin with the man himself:
WINNER: Giannis Antetokounmpo
He'd clearly (and reasonably) determined that the Bucks as constituted were not capable of mounting a credible push for deep postseason runs and decided he wanted to be somewhere else. Well, now he's somewhere else.
Antetokounmpo woke up Tuesday with a better co-star (Bam Adebayo) than anyone that the Bucks currently had or were likely to be able to add. He joins a franchise that has gone to the NBA Finals seven times in the last 20 years and twice in the last decade, led by a front office with a track record of turning limited financial flexibility and lower-wattage prospects into supporting casts that augment stars. He does so with the ability to, in six months, sign his preferred version of a contract extension that will pay him about $70 million a year through his mid-30s (while paying no state taxes on that income).
AdvertisementAdvertisementThis trade, in and of itself, does not guarantee Antetokounmpo a return to playing meaningful basketball in May and June. But if you were looking for a change of scenery, Biscayne Bay ain't half bad.
LOSER: Bucks fans
There is no silver lining to losing the best player that your franchise has employed in half a century, and arguably the most important player in franchise history — especially after the team repeatedly did just about everything it could (outside of nailing draft picks, natch) at every turn to try to keep him.
(My best effort at constructing one: Flags fly forever. Game 6 will always have happened. You don't have to return the joy you felt at watching every step of Giannis' journey, at knowing he was yours, for the last 13 years. And now, the miserable eternal speculation is over. I won't blame you if you don't rush to renew your season ticket packages for the next couple of seasons. But after several years of stasis, now there's finally an opportunity to create something new. That's not nothing.)
AdvertisementAdvertisementA great many Bucks fans will likely hold grudges against The National Media for years to come. I can't blame them. It's not that Giannis left; it's the endless, seemingly gleeful anticipation of it. Having to wake up and see the same breathless conjecture reheated and repackaged, day after day, year after year, is the kind of misery-manufacturing that produces bitter tastes and sharpened elbows.
This is, to some degree, the nature of the beast. Stars drive conversation, and when stars aren't in title contention, chatting about whether they might want to be someplace other than where they are is a hell of a lot easier and sexier to discuss than, like, to what degree Ryan Rollins' growth in the backcourt might move the needle. Some of that is understandable; a years-long avalanche of it, though, began to leave no shortage of Bucks fans feeling like there was a concerted effort to rip an immortal player away from their less-than-desirable media market and plop him into a preferred destination.
Today, many Bucks fans find themselves both mourning the end of the most consequential era of their basketball-loving lives and feeling angry that the last few years of it were so toxic and tainted. This stuff's supposed to be fun. It sucks when it's not.
WINNER: Michael Redd, putting things into perspective
To everything, there is a season, says the Bucks' former All-Star sharpshooter; this, too, shall pass. (Listen, the guy's just good at Twitter.)
AdvertisementAdvertisementWINNER: The Miami Heat
On a very basic level, after four straight years in the play-in tournament, three straight springs without a playoff series victory and just one 50-win season since the end of the LeBron era, the Heat are relevant again. They have one of the five or so best players in the NBA. They have two bona-fide All-NBA-caliber two-way big men. They have what should be the makings of an elite defense, and one of the most dominant offensive forces in NBA history. After years of watching Erik Spoelstra try to duct-tape-and-chicken-wire his way through mid-April, this is a pretty nice place to start.
No, this trade by itself doesn't guarantee the Heat a spot in the Eastern Conference finals, and yes, trading away years of far-future draft picks could come back to bite them. But for the last few years, a franchise that had become synonymous with superstars and deep playoff runs had come to feel almost ancillary to the broader narrative of the league. Getting Giannis, if nothing else, promises to change that.
WINNER: The Heat's reputation as star hunters
After coming up short in recent superstar sweepstakes for the likes of Kevin Durant, Damian Lillard and Donovan Mitchell in recent years, the Heat have landed their first bona fide game-changer in more than a half-decade. A franchise that has made its bones importing future Hall of Famers — Alonzo Mourning in 1995, Tim Hardaway in 1996, Shaquille O'Neal in 2004, LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010, Jimmy Butler in 2019 — adds another all-time great for what figures to be the balance of his prime.
AdvertisementAdvertisementHeat brass took advantage of Giannis' reported willingness to sign an extension in Miami (and unwillingness to extend in most other locations) to get the deal over the finish line and come away with a player who finished in the top five in MVP voting in seven consecutive seasons before 2025-26 and who averaged just under 28 points, 10 rebounds and 5.5 assists on 62% shooting in 29 minutes per game when healthy last season. Whether Antetokounmpo can be the same sort of driving force that those other additions were, elevating the Heat from perennial play-in positioning back into the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference, remains to be seen. But it had become customary over the last few years to wonder whether Pat Riley, Andy Elisburg, Adam Simon and that vaunted Heat front office could still land the biggest fish in the pond. On Tuesday morning, they did just that.
WINNERS (presumably): Andrew Wiggins and Norman Powell
After shipping out Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel'el Ware and Kasparas Jakučionis — plus, of course, a boatload of draft picks — in exchange for Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis, the Heat will now turn their attention to filling out the rest of their starting lineup and roster around the Giannis-Bam frontcourt combo. The glaring need to surround those big men with shooting would seem like good news for Wiggins, who shot a career-high 41.4% from 3-point range last season and holds a $30.2 million player option for next season, and Powell, who's fresh off his first All-Star appearance and just saw the Heat elegantly resolve his at-times uncomfortable two-guard-slot timeshare with Herro.
AdvertisementAdvertisementI wouldn't be surprised to see Wiggins decline that player option in favor of inking a multi-year deal that delivers him more total guaranteed money at a lower average annual value, giving Miami's braintrust a bit more wiggle room to round out the rest of the roster. ESPN's Brian Windhorst said Tuesday that getting Powell back in the fold could be a bit trickier, given his status as arguably the best guard on the unrestricted free agent market, but if the two parties can find a similar longer-range, lower-per-year price point that's amenable to both sides, the 33-year-old sniper — just under 41% from deep over the last eight years across stints in Toronto, Portland, L.A. and Miami — would seem like a hand-in-glove fit around two playmaking bigs who'd benefit from the presence of a quick-trigger, high-volume, high-accuracy movement shooter and downhill driver like Powell.
Finding that price point might be tough, though, with the Heat now hard-capped at the first apron and reportedly limited (for now) to just $18.1 million in salary cap space to fill out the rest of the roster. To wit:
WINNERS: Minimum-salaried free agents who can shoot 3s
It's a throwback to the dawn of the Big 3 era, when Riley and Co. worked their tails off to find complementary players to try to space the floor for LeBron, Bosh and Dwyane Wade. In the years to come, they'd add more pieces to augment the championship-caliber core — most notably Shane Battier and Ray Allen — but in the early going, it was a little trickier.
AdvertisementAdvertisementI don't know if old Giannis pal Khris Middleton will wind up being this year's Mike Miller, or if #HeatCulture alum Gabe Vincent becomes a new generation's Mike Bibby. I do feel pretty confident in saying, though, that if the Heat want to build a contending team around Antetokounmpo, Adebayo, starting point guard Davion Mitchell and a somewhat speculative second unit (Portis, Pelle Larsson, Nikola Jović, Dru Smith), they're going to need to hit some home runs on the minimum, a la Landry Shamet in New York. Getting the superstar was the hard part, but the work doesn't end there.
PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE NBA RIGHT NOW: Miami's athletic training and medical staff
Here's where we remind you that Antetokounmpo turns 32 in December, that he hasn't played 70 games in a season since the pandemic, that he's dealt with an array of knee, calf, groin and foot injuries over the past several years, and that he only played 36 games last season (though some of those absences were, um, contested).
Without Giannis last season, the Bucks had the point differential of an 18-win team; while one must suspect that next year's Heat wouldn't be quite as destitute as the 2025-26 non-Giannis Bucks, it's still absolutely paramount that Miami keep the Grecian newcomer as operational and ambulatory as humanly possible.
AdvertisementAdvertisementGood news on that front, via injury expert Jeff Stotts of In Street Clothes:
If they can make it three in a row, the Heat very well could have the kind of rocketship-ride up the standings for which they're hoping next season.
WINNERS: The adjectives 'nice' and 'decent'
Feels like those are going to get a fairly serious workout in describing the package that Milwaukee extracted from the Heat.
Sure, the future picks could be more — maybe even much more. In terms of present-tense players and overall tonnage, though? Pretty nice crop. Pretty decent haul. But it's pretty hard to say too much more in its favor than that.
AdvertisementAdvertisementLOSER: The current and near-future Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks finished 32-50 last season — their worst record since Giannis' rookie season. It would be something of an upset if they weren't significantly worse this year.
Yes, Herro's an All-Star-caliber shot-creator who's averaged better than 20 points and four assists per game for five straight seasons. But it's difficult to see a starting lineup featuring five of Herro, Jaquez, Rollins, Myles Turner, Kyle Kuzma and AJ Green producing even league-average results on either end of the floor — and that's if the Bucks even keep all of those guys. I'm high on new head coach Taylor Jenkins' ability to turn seemingly mismatched pieces into a cohesive whole with an identity and style of play. It just feels like, without a single blue-chip talent around which to build, that's going to be a long-term project … which, for a team that doesn't control its own first-round draft pick until 2030, could make for a rough few years.
Speaking of …
AdvertisementAdvertisementWINNER: Those who control near-future Bucks draft picks
Milwaukee’s 2027 first is earmarked for either New Orleans or Atlanta, stretching back to the trade that made Jrue Holiday a Buck in the long, long ago of 2020 (and the 2024 deal that made Dejounte Murray a Hawk). Portland controls the Bucks’ firsts in 2028, 2029 and 2030, dating back to the deal that brought Lillard to Milwaukee. The Bucks have also traded away all seven available years’ worth of their second-round picks, through 2032.
Maybe the onset of the new 3-2-1 lottery system, with its “relegation zone” for teams that finish with one of the league’s worst records and an inability for consistently heinous teams to repeatedly finish with a top-three selections, will result in less painful outcomes for the Bucks as they watch other teams take their picks. Even so, though: yikes.
LOSER: Holding on too long
I am admittedly not the right messenger for this particular message. I believe in sticking it out until the bitter end with your saints, even if doing so might result in something less than a maximum possible return as that franchise icon steps out the door. (Though maybe, given multiple reports that Antetokounmpo had communicated to the Bucks he would not sign another extension in Milwaukee, there was no way of avoiding that at this stage, anyway.)
AdvertisementAdvertisementBut that’s an emotional perspective.
From a cold, rational, “do what’s best for the franchise” standpoint, it’s hard to look at the fact that the Bucks dealt Giannis without getting back a no-doubt-about-it blue-chipper or immediate high-value draft pick to add to the roster right away and not find yourself wondering: What could they have gotten if they’d actually opened up the bidding on him last summer (if not earlier), and before making the jaw-dropping-in-the-moment decision to stretch Lillard’s $113 million contract and use the savings to sign Turner?
On second thought: Maybe it’s better not to think too hard about that. Today’s already rough enough as it is.
WINNER (potentially): The 2030s Milwaukee Bucks
OK, the glass-half-full take:
The Bucks walk away from this deal with two late lottery picks in Tuesday’s 2026 NBA draft (Nos. 10 and 13 overall), the right to swap picks with Miami in 2030 (when Giannis will be 35), unprotected first-rounders in 2031 and 2033 (when he’ll be 36 and 38), and a 2033 second-round pick. (One particularly fascinating component of those 2030s picks: With the new 3-2-1 system featuring a provision to “sunset” after 2029, we don’t even know what the lottery rules are going to look like then!)
They also have a pair of new developmental prospects to explore (alongside 24-year-old breakout guard Rollins) in Ware, a 22-year-old rebounder and shot-blocker who’s also flashed a 3-point-shooting stroke (and who also often found himself outside Spoelstra’s circle of trust), and Jakučionis, a 6-foot-5 combo guard who shot 42% from 3-point range as a rookie and saw his minutes, role and efficiency increase as the year wore on.
They now have access to their full midlevel and biannual exceptions, and could create a $25.5 million traded player exception — all of which could be used to absorb salary in exchange for more draft capital from teams looking to get off money. They also have the potential to increase the overall haul by re-routing vets like Herro, a proven scorer and playmaker who’s already reportedly drawn interest — though there’s reportedly some interest in the Wisconsin native sticking around — and Turner, who had a down 2025-26 but is one season removed from being the starting floor-spacing center on a team that went to Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
The longest-term deal on the Bucks’ books right now — well, besides the $22.5 million in dead money through 2030 from the Dame waive-and-stretch, which, woof — is sharpshooter Green’s about-to-kick-in four-year, $45 million extension. There’s an opportunity here: Strip it down to the studs, see what the young dudes have, become a scouting-and-development monster to find value on the margins, keep the ledger clean while you’re waiting out Dame’s dead money, and in a few years’ time, turn your own refilling coffers and those hopefully maturing Heat picks into the core of the next consistently competitive Bucks team. I’ll admit: It’s tough to see that brighter future on a dark day like Tuesday. If you squint, though, you can kind of make out the outline of something better.
AdvertisementAdvertisement(You’re going to need Jon Horst to do a hell of a lot better with those draft picks, though.)
WINNER: Quantity over quality
All the reporting suggests that Milwaukee had two legitimate offers on the table for Giannis: the Heat’s package, light on bankable talent but featuring three unprotected first-round picks and a first-round swap; and the Boston Celtics’ offer, which featured All-NBA forward Jaylen Brown, but only two unprotected picks. Whatever their reasoning — uncertainty over whether they’d be able to flip Brown’s larger contract into more draft capital from another suitor, trepidation over the prospect that Brown wouldn’t want to stay in Milwaukee long term, perhaps just a preference for smaller, cost-controlled deals? — the Bucks chose the former, preferring multiple mystery boxes to one seemingly sure thing. If nothing else, that’s pretty interesting!
WINNER: Ancient grudges, befitting the old lore
There’s something to be said for Pat Riley — remembered first and foremost as a Laker, no matter how long he’s spent in South Beach — finding a way to get one over on the Celtics one more time.
AdvertisementAdvertisementSpeaking of which …
LOSER (technically): The Boston Celtics
I mean, it was a race to the finish line between two teams, and Miami got there first. Maybe the Celtics didn’t really want Giannis badly enough to go the extra mile; clearly, they weren’t willing to put quite as much on the table as the Heat were to get the deal done. (By the way, we have now firmly established the trade value of Hugo González and Baylor Scheierman as “North of Giannis.” Please update your files accordingly.)
But they also clearly wanted Giannis at least a little bit, right? The C’s exited their stunning first-round defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers believing they needed something: an infusion of talent, a dose of rim pressure, a higher-tier big man and just overall more with which to put themselves in a position to credibly challenge the New York Knicks (and, lest we forget, healthy Indiana Pacers) for Eastern Conference supremacy. They went after a guy who seemed like he’d provide all of it, and they didn’t get him, in part because they didn’t want to part with late-first-round role players. That’s notable.
AdvertisementAdvertisementPROBABLY MOSTLY FINE (actually): The Boston Celtics
Here’s where we remind you that, before their disastrous final three playoff games, the Celtics won 56 games with the NBA’s second-best offense and fifth-best defense in a season that saw them give nearly 7,000 minutes to the previously unproven González, Scheierman, Neemias Queta, Jordan Walsh and Luka Garza — while getting just over 500 minutes from All-NBA main man Jayson Tatum, after his miraculously quick recovery from a ruptured Achilles tendon.
There’s a reason the oddsmakers tabbed — and are still tabbing — Boston as the favorite to make it out of the East next season, irrespective of where Giannis ended up. Another year of seasoning for those youngsters can only help, and besides, when healthy, the combination of Tatum and Jaylen Brown has essentially guaranteed contention for the last decade. As long as those guys are together, the Celtics very well could be just fine.
Although …
AdvertisementAdvertisementWINNER: The Monster Factory
I wouldn’t presume to know how Brown will respond to Brad Stevens and Co. offering him in the prospective package for Antetokounmpo, or what the eventual fallout of those discussions and his response to them will be within the walls of TD Garden. I’m just saying that it seems like a situation worth hitting the “Follow” button on that Twitch stream to keep an eye on.
LOSER (for now): The expectation that the Giannis trade would dramatically shift the NBA’s balance of power
Oddsmakers slotted the Heat fifth in the NBA’s 2027 title picture after the Giannis deal, behind the Spurs, Thunder, Celtics and defending champion Knicks. On one hand, you’d be forgiven for feeling that’s a little low, given how all-consuming and excellent Giannis is when he’s fully operational. On the other, though … are you convinced that the Heat, as constituted, are going to be world-beaters?
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe East’s No. 1 seed, the Detroit Pistons, just won 60 games and have the ammunition to add some more shooting this summer (perhaps in the form of the player the Heat just dealt to the Bucks). The Cavaliers wobbled to the finish line and got trucked by the Knicks, but they did just make the Eastern Conference finals. The Pacers, one season removed from taking OKC the distance in the Finals, welcome back a healthy Tyrese Haliburton to pair with new big man Ivica Zubac.
The Raptors, 76ers, Hawks and Magic all still form a strong middle class. The Hornets were arguably the best team in the conference for the final three months of the season. The bottom-feeding Wizards are about to add the first pick in the draft to their young core and, we suspect, will actually play the stars they got at February’s deadline (especially after backing up the Brinks truck for Trae Young).
I’m not saying that all, or even most, of those teams will finish higher than the Giannis-and-Bam-led Heat. I do think, though, that it’s at least as likely that next year’s Heat are still duking it out for a top-six spot rather than taking aim at the top spot … which is probably not the outcome that Miami brass has in mind and isn’t exactly what it most likely envisioned as the result of the eventual Giannis blockbuster.
WINNER: Those seeking fresh trade speculation
The most popular question immediately after the Giannis trade, naturally: So what’s next?
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe Heat have a win-now roster that still needs shooting, a real tight financial squeeze to round it out, and two still-tradable draft picks they can use to hunt for upgrades. How do they fill in around their stars?
The Bucks’ plans for Herro remain unclear. If they opt to flip him, then to where, and for whom/what? And what about Turner, who had a wildly underwhelming first season in Milwaukee, but who remains (in theory) the kind of rim-protecting stretch-5 that plays up on a good team — especially one with legitimate point guard play?
Everything that Stevens said about the Celtics after the season — about the need to pressure the rim, about the need to level up to better battle the best teams in the league, etc. — remains true, only now they don’t have Giannis and have, as previously discussed, turned on the power at The Monster Factory. So where do they get that talent? Is Brown their pathway to it? If so, where does it come from? Are teams like Portland, Atlanta and New Orleans, which previously have been reported as interested parties in Brown talks, back in the running? If so, what’s Boston looking for in return?
Hey: How about the Timberwolves? While the eyes of the league were focused on Milwaukee and Miami, Minnesota — previously a reported Giannis suitor itself — flipped Julius Randle to Brooklyn in a deal that shed a bunch of money, opening up the salary cap space to re-sign Ayo Dosunmu (at a pretty penny!) while also unlocking its ability to use multiple salary-cap exceptions in signings and trades. Do the Wolves actually use them to add to the team now? Or is this setting up to be a gap year after consecutive Western Conference finals berths and a trip to the second round this season where they pushed the Spurs to six despite being hampered by injuries? And if the sum total of this is “the new owners are saving a bunch of money” … well, how psyched is Anthony Edwards likely to be about that?
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Hey, remember Ja Morant? What happens with him now? If the Heat and presumably the Bulls — after the Randle deal landed Nic Claxton into a large chunk of Chicago’s max cap space — are off the board as prospective destinations, where might he land?
Also: This Giannis deal, as currently constructed, can’t be concluded until July 6. That gives the Heat and Bucks a lot of time to add to it. How many teams, players and picks might this sucker eventually encompass? And just how significantly might the landscape of the league change by the time it’s actually OK’d by the powers that be?
