Amid Giannis trade chatter, the Bucks look stuck after another lost season

Following the devastation of seeing Damian Lillard go down with a torn Achilles in Sunday’s Game 4, the Milwaukee Bucks’ home locker room at Fiserv Forum quickly cleared out. Veterans such as Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis stuck around to talk to reporters about Lillard, one of their favorite teammates, and how the team would attempt to win Tuesday’s Game 5 of their first-round series against the Indiana Pacers without him. Eventually, Giannis Antetokounmpo was the last player left in the room.

Directly in front of the former MVP’s stall sat a white board with only one thing written on it: 15. Four seasons ago, on the way to winning the franchise’s first NBA championship in 50 seasons, the Bucks had developed a cherished tradition after postseason wins — impact players taking a marker and scrawling how many victories they still needed to get to the requisite 16 to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. It was a visual reminder that their championship aspirations were within reach.

On Sunday, that number was a sign of how far away this group would remain.Two days later, the Bucks dropped Game 5 in Indianapolis in heartbreaking fashion, their third-straight first-round exit after making at least the conference semifinals in four consecutive years from 2019 to 2022. They now enter another offseason wondering how to build around one of the best players in the sport.

Since the start of this season, Antetokounmpo had been making one thing clear: He was done with first-round flops.

At media day last September, Antetokounmpo was asked whether he believed the team’s latest additions could help the Bucks return to the Eastern Conference finals, or even the NBA Finals.

A smile came across his face.

“First of all, conference finals or finals?” Antetokounmpo responded. “We gotta get out of the first round. Let’s start with that.”

Antetokounmpo is a playful personality who sometimes reveals his most honest reflections with a dose of humor, but good jokes tend to contain harsh truths. And while this was a lighthearted comment that underscored the Bucks’ playoff struggles, with Antetokounmpo hopeful that the Bucks could finally contend in the East again after enjoying their first full offseason with coach Doc Rivers and co-star Lillard, it was their sobering reality, too. As he would say in no uncertain terms a few days later during training camp, anything less than a deep playoff run was unacceptable.

“This year, a challenge for me is to be healthy,” he told The Athletic then. “A challenge for me is to play in the playoffs, to get out of the f—ing 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.”

Yet seven months later, here they are — again.

By falling to Indiana 119-118 in overtime in Game 5 on Tuesday, the once-mighty Bucks sparked a summer of speculation about what’s next for the two-time MVP.

Add in the devastating news about Lillard, whose left Achilles’ tendon tear in Game 4 will likely cost him most of next season while making their road ahead that much more challenging, and the gravity of Antetokounmpo’s training camp message is surely being felt within the Bucks’ walls.

The reasons for falling short are many, from ill-timed injuries in the past four postseasons to roster decisions that simply didn’t pan out, but the results are the results. Since winning 16 playoff games in 2021 to capture Milwaukee’s first NBA championship since 1971, and second in franchise history, the Bucks have won a combined 11 playoff games over the last four seasons and made the East semifinals once.

The question now, one that recently extended general manager Jon Horst must answer, is what the Bucks might look like when they return.

Andre Jackson Jr. faces up against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the NBA Cup final in December 2024. (Candice Ward / Imagn Images)

In the hallway outside the locker room assigned to the Bucks at Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena, Andre Jackson Jr. conferred with Rajon Rondo about what the team’s coaching consultant was seeing on the floor in the first half of the Dec. 17 NBA Cup Final. Jackson had the task of defending Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and was handling the assignment well, given that the Thunder’s MVP candidate had made just four of his 13 first-half field goal attempts.

With a little extra guidance from Rondo, Jackson led the Bucks’ defensive effort that held Gilgeous-Alexander to 21 points on 8-of-24 shooting and the Thunder to only 81 points in a Milwaukee victory. The Thunder, who would end the regular season with an NBA-best 68-14 record, scored fewer than 100 points in only three games this year. Their lowest-scoring effort in any other game was 98 points.

With the 6-foot-6 Jackson taking on the toughest assignments each night and full-court pressing the league’s top perimeter scorers, the Bucks had found a way to ugly up games with their defense and beat the league’s best. Milwaukee believed it had found its groove after a 2-8 stumble out of the gates and an identity it could use the rest of the season.

“We just kept talking about our size,” Rivers said after the game. “And the slower the game gets, the bigger we get.”

From Nov. 16 to Feb. 12, the final game before the All-Star break, Jackson started in all 40 games he played, serving as the Bucks’ defensive tone-setter on the perimeter. But following the break, and with new addition Kyle Kuzma to work in, Rivers excised Jackson from his rotation because of the team’s poor offensive numbers when he shared the floor with Antetokounmpo. In the Bucks’ first-round loss to Indiana, Jackson did not play outside of garbage time, despite the Bucks’ inability to find perimeter defenders who could consistently keep the Pacers out of the lane.

Playing Jackson would not have saved Milwaukee, but his season is an example of the Bucks’ inability to build meaningful regular-season habits that could help the team make a deep postseason run.

Those examples were everywhere as the team seemed to make a relatively aimless pass through the regular season.

Before the season began, the Bucks knew that their big three of Antetokounmpo, Lillard and Khris Middleton would be key to competing with the best teams in the Eastern Conference come playoff time.

But the Bucks tried a starting lineup featuring that trio for only three games, which happened to be three games in which Antetokounmpo and Lillard struggled to score as they returned from an illness, before deciding that the offensive rhythm was off with all three on the floor. Across 18 games from Middleton, who missed the first 21 games of the season after offseason surgeries on both ankles, the big three outscored opponents by 7.4 points per 100 possessions, but only played 197 minutes together before Middleton was traded to the Washington Wizards for Kuzma.

The whole idea behind acquiring Lillard on the eve of last season was to become an elite offensive team. In the playoffs, the Bucks had not been able to score enough as teams loaded up on Antetokounmpo, while Middleton and Jrue Holiday were asked to take on a larger scoring load. With Lillard, Milwaukee was going to change its formula and become an elite offense team while playing enough defense to win playoff games.

But the Bucks never found a way to become elite offensively, despite getting career seasons from their two players who had been named to the NBA’s 75th anniversary team.

Antetokounmpo averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game while shooting 60.1 percent from the field. Lillard added 24.9 points and 7.1 assists per game while posting the fourth-highest effective field-goal percentage (54.7) of his 13-year career. Milwaukee ended the season with the NBA’s top 3-point shooting percentage (38.7). And yet, the Bucks finished the season 10th in offensive rating and were 15th in the category before Lillard missed the final 14 games of the regular season.

As the Bucks cycled through ideas and players during the regular season, they never found a formula for elite play. Whether it was the front office’s fault for not finding the right players or the coaching staff’s inability to put them in the right positions remains an open question.

It does not seem to have publicly shaken the most important person’s faith in leadership. Despite the struggles to maximize talent over the last two seasons, Antetokounmpo was effusive when asked about Rivers after Tuesday’s game.

“I love Doc,” Antetokounmpo said. “I think he’s a great human being. Great dude, knows how to uplift your spirit, knows always the right thing to say at the right moment. You guys have been around him, he’s been in the NBA for 50 years …

“I just love him. Not only as a coach, as a person. I think he’s a great person. If you’re not a good person and a good coach, you can’t be around for this long. I love working with him.”

Everything changed when Lillard went for that offensive rebound in the first quarter of Game 4 on Sunday.

The Bucks’ offseason focus shifted from finding better systemized solutions and potentially retooling the roster around Antetokounmpo to trying to figure out if the decade-long push to use every available asset to contend for championships during Antetokounmpo’s prime had finally reached its breaking point.

Building a contender with Lillard sidelined as he recovers from a torn left Achilles’ tendon will be, barring a miracle, nearly impossible next season. His $54.1 million contract will take up roughly 35 percent of next season’s projected $154.6 million salary cap. And while league sources say Lillard is optimistic about a speedy recovery, the Bucks cannot plan for the future expecting the nine-time All-Star, who turns 35 in July, to fully return to his pre-injury form next season.

Had Lillard remained healthy, and had the Bucks still fallen in the first round, league sources say there would have been discussions about whether Lillard wanted to remain in Milwaukee. The relationship between Antetokounmpo and Lillard is strong, as is the respect level, but the imperfections of their on-court pairing remained in their second season together. And with the group’s collective limitations growing more evident by the month, a conversation was looming about whether Lillard and the Bucks might be better off parting ways.

Depending on his trade market, that potential pathway could have provided the Bucks with a new plan — one that revived the roster with depth while putting the ball back in Antetokounmpo’s hands even more than before, something he is known to welcome. Lillard, who earned his ninth All-Star berth in February, had still shown an ability to be elite. If the right deal was there to be had, it could have been a win-win for both sides. But the injury renders that option nearly impossible.

Kuzma makes roughly $7 million less than Middleton, so swapping them at the deadline helped the Bucks get under the second apron and provided more options in the offseason. One such tool is a trade exception worth roughly $7.2 million, which would allow the Bucks to take in a player with a salary of that size or smaller. Avoiding the second apron means the team’s future first-round pick isn’t frozen, so it can trade either its 2031 or 2032 first-round picks and it will now have access to the $14.1 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception, which can be split among multiple players.

But while swapping Middleton for Kuzma gave the Bucks more options this offseason, Horst and the Bucks still have few avenues available to upgrade talent this offseason. And that’s before considering the players who might end up leaving.

Antetokounmpo, Lillard, Kuzma and Tyler Smith are the only players with fully guaranteed contracts. Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton and Kevin Porter Jr. have player options for next season. AJ Green, Jackson and Chris Livingston have non-guaranteed contracts that the Bucks will have the option to guarantee after the initial free-agency frenzy in July. The rest of the roster, including significant contributors such as Brook Lopez, Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and Ryan Rollins, will be unrestricted free agents.

The Bucks have various rights that give them the ability to retain some of the players already on the roster, but tough decisions will need to be made. And regardless of what comes next, the prospect of the Bucks being any better than a low-level playoff team, or perhaps even a Play-In team, seems unlikely — even with Antetokounmpo’s brilliance.

So that leaves one massive question, one the Bucks and everyone else in the Association want to know: What might that mean about how Antetokounmpo sees his situation?

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard combined to average 55.3 points per game this season. (Dale Zanine / Imagn Images)

For the last seven years, Horst and the Bucks have delivered a roster that seemed to satisfy Antetokounmpo’s primary desire: to be in a position to compete for a championship. At the start of the run, the Bucks weren’t just competing for titles, they were posting the Eastern Conference’s best record and entering the postseason among the betting favorites to win the title.

For the last two seasons, they have been closer to the fringe of contention. With two Top 75 talents on the roster, there was still a belief that the Bucks could get it done if they stayed healthy enough to get a chance in the postseason.

Along the way, Antetokounmpo made his commitment to the Bucks clear by signing max extensions in 2020 and 2023 while raising occasional concern with public comments about his future.

“This is my team, and it’s going to forever be my team,” he told The New York Times in August 2023, less than two months before the Lillard trade. “I don’t forget people that were there for me and allowed me to be great and to showcase who I am to the world and gave me the platform. But we have to win another one. …Winning a championship comes first. I don’t want to be 20 years on the same team and don’t win another championship.”

With Lillard expected to miss most of the 2025-26 season, the Bucks’ standing in the NBA world comes into question for the first time since they first arrived among the NBA’s elites in 2018. That means they will need to hear what Antetokounmpo thinks.

The organization’s recent re-commitment to Horst means Antetokounmpo will have a familiar and trusted partner to discuss such sensitive matters. While some rival executives were surprised that the Bucks would extend Horst amid all this uncertainty and underwhelming play, the ownership group opted for stability. Horst, who league sources say was in consideration for front office positions in Phoenix and New Orleans before doing this deal, has worked with Antetokounmpo since he arrived from Greece in 2013, and the two remain close all these years later.

Of course, several sports media personalities have already decided that Antetokounmpo will be playing for a new team next season. Before the postseason even began, former NBA player Marcus Morris went on an ESPN morning show and picked Antetokounmpo’s next team for him (Miami). On Tuesday morning, 10 hours before the Bucks tipped Game 5 in Indianapolis, another ex-player, Carlos Boozer, declared on the same network that the Bucks’ all-time leading scorer had played his final game for the Bucks (he picked the Lakers as his next spot). In the wake of the Bucks’ loss to the Pacers, and with the myriad logistical issues outlined above, The Athletic’s John Hollinger argued that the Bucks’ best move here is to trade Antetokounmpo.

But what those people say and think does not matter here. Nor does it matter if an opposing team has made Antetokounmpo its Plan A, B and C for the upcoming offseason. It’s the opinion of one person and one organization that matters this offseason.

In a vacuum, Giannis’ Game 5 performance against the Pacers was indicative of his overall dilemma. He had 30 points, 20 rebounds, 13 assists, two blocks and two steals — a stat line that had never been accomplished in league history — yet his team still lost. Antetokounmpo is known to be at his most comfortable with the ball in his hands, a point he made with an analogy to a cookie jar during the Bucks’ eight-game win streak to close out the regular season and again after Tuesday’s loss.

Giannis’ cookie jar analogy. 🍪😂 pic.twitter.com/xgCt6fMgSj

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) April 9, 2025

“I always felt like that would be my last phase,” he said. “As a guy that can play-make and can set up the team and be like a legit point forward out there … I’ve seen one of the greatest players, LeBron James, being the best at it.

“You see a lot of people that can handle the ball and put their teammates in the right place and play-make and make the team better. It’s something I enjoy to do. If I have the opportunity to come back next year and be able to do that, I would love it. I think I can be good. I can help the team in that way.”

As he considers his future, Antetokounmpo will have to decide if he would enjoy the challenge of performing the Sisyphian task of dragging a shorthanded team to wins on a nightly basis without a strong chance of contending for a title.

Antetokounmpo has two more guaranteed years on his deal and a player option for the 2027-28 season, so he is under team control. The Bucks would not have to move him, but if he decided to demand a trade, Milwaukee would be forced to consider the prospect of a future without its beloved franchise and community centerpiece.

As the Bucks’ season neared an end, league sources told The Athletic that Antetokounmpo hadn’t focused on anything beyond this season because, true to his ultra-competitive form, he was doing everything in his power to help the Bucks advance. As Antetokounmpo made clear after Game 5, the discussion about what might come next was for another day.

“Look, I’m not gonna do this,” Antetokounmpo said Tuesday when asked if he believed he could win another championship in Milwaukee. “I’m not gonna do this. I know how this is gonna work. Whatever I say, I know how it’s going to translate.

“I don’t know, man, I wish I was still playing. I wish I was still competing and going back to Milwaukee (for Game 6). I don’t know.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; John Fisher, Brennan Asplen, Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE / Getty Images)

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