The Ringer founder Bill Simmons just dropped one of the most sober takes thus far on the recent deluge of Giannis trade rumors floating around, and his logic is brutally sound. The market for Milwaukee's superstar won't actually materialize until teams see proof he's healthy, and that means this saga isn't ending anytime soon.
On a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, the longtime NBA analyst broke down why the Bucks' situation is more complicated than hot take artists want to admit. And maybe it's the reality check that changes everything about trade speculation.
"I don't think anyone's trading for him unless they see him running around for two weeks. This is like the decade of being afraid of calf injuries. This is what's happened," he said.
Giannis Antetokounmpo will have to stay healthy if he wants out
That's the timeline. Nobody's offering multiple first-round picks and young stars for Giannis until he proves his body can hold up. The knee issues and accumulated wear and tear are all making teams apprehensive about committing huge assets to a 31-year-old superstar whose health is increasingly questionable.
If he eventually decides he truly wants out, Giannis will need to play an extended period of time and show no signs of slowing down. That's just the minimum requirement as it currently stands before any team will seriously engage Milwaukee on a trade. And what that means is that the earliest realistic window for a Giannis deal is probably late January or early February, assuming he stays healthy through the holidays.
This timeline actually helps the Bucks. If they can get healthy and string together some wins in December, suddenly there's no urgency to blow it up. Maybe by then, Giannis' waning belief in the team also turns around. It's entirely possible that the team cohesion that Simmons still clearly believes in actually proves itself with everyone on the floor together later on.
But if Milwaukee keeps struggling and Giannis misses more time, his trade value continues eroding while the franchise watches its leverage disappear. That's the nightmare scenario: needing to trade him to salvage something, but unable to get fair value because nobody trusts his health enough.
The silver lining is that Simmons also offers a glimmer of optimism for what this team can be. The concept is still sound, and it can still work in a weak East. An earnest argument can be made that Milwaukee's roster construction isn't fundamentally broken -- they just haven't had everyone healthy and clicking simultaneously long enough to judge whether it actually works.
"I still like this team and I don't think we ever saw it...we never really saw everybody together other than for like two games. And I still like the concept [of] Giannis and shooting. The thing is, the East, the way it is, they're still going to be a play-in team if they don't trade Giannis."
Fans would be right to hold onto the fact that we haven't seen this team at full strength. Neither the chemistry, rotations, nor the offensive flow have really had the time to meaningfully develop thus far this season because someone's always hurt. That makes it harder to evaluate whether the core concept works or if it's fundamentally flawed. After all, who can forget the flashes of early-season dominance they showed before everyone got injured?
But the health question looms over everything now. The timeline is two weeks of healthy Giannis. That's the real timeline for when this situation gets clarity. Until then, it's all speculation and noise.