The Milwaukee Bucks have already won the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade. In today's NBA, teams are getting more and more reluctant to ship out a ton of draft picks for a single player. It seems like people are learning from the Rudy Gobert trade, the Donovan Mitchell trade, and the Paul George trade that the LA Clippers made with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Yet the Bucks still managed to get great draft picks out of the Miami Heat.
But perhaps more importantly, the Bucks managed to get two unprotected first-round picks in 2031 and 2033. By that time, it seems very unlikely that Giannis is playing at a high enough level to make the Heat a top contender in the East. And unless the Heat find a way to add significant pieces to their roster, it feels like they could enter a period where they are middling.
And if, by then, the Heat are just a middle-ground team in the Eastern Conference, that bodes very well for the Bucks.
Giannis Antetotkounmpo trade gave Bucks what they needed most
Milwaukee didn't have a ton of first-round picks before the Antetokounmpo trade. In fact, it didn't own any of its own picks for a long, long time. It was a major problem.
For years, the Bucks were completely unafraid to trade their own first-round picks because they wanted to help Antetokounmpo win a championship. In the short term, it paid off, as they won a title in 2021. But it quickly came back to bite them.
The Bucks traded a ton of first-round picks in two separate deals. Landing Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard to form two different iterations of Bucks teams.
Holiday panned out perfectly. He helped them win a championship alongside Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. Lillard didn't work out as well.
But now, the New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers own almost all of the Bucks' future first-round picks. So, when the Bucks went to trade Antetokounmpo, they had to get firsts back.
The Bucks only got three unprotected firsts in the trade with the Heat. One in 2026, one in 2031, and one in 2033. However, as previously mentioned, those picks in 2031 and 2023 are very.
Because by then, Antetokounmpo is going to be old, and the Heat may not be the force that they are projected to be in the next few years. Miami is built for the short-term. To win right now.
So, for a team that doesn't have a ton of picks, this was a win. And that's without even getting into the player pool they got back.
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