It’s officially time to panic if you’re a Milwaukee Bucks fan and you want to see Giannis play a game in your team’s jersey beyond the end of this season. Not only are the Bucks down 3-0 to the Miami Heat in the second round of the playoffs – their most recent two loses have come in some pretty demoralizing ways; in game two, Jimmy Butler hit a pair of free throws with no time remaining, and in game three, the Bucks were outscored 40-13 in the fourth quarter by the Heat. 40-13! That’s a tough loss to take, and you have to believe Giannis isn’t all too pleased with the outcome of either of those games. It’s true that Milwaukee has done a good job finding pieces to compliment him, and that they’ve put together some pretty good regular season records over the last two years, but this team just doesn’t seem like a serious contender when the playoffs roll around – in fact, we picked the Heat to beat them in this matchup. By the time the clock hit zero in game three against the Heat, Antetokounmpo was probably imagining himself in a Miami jersey. Or a Golden State Warriors one. Or any number of others, since suitors from across the league will undoubtedly be making pitches to him in the next couple of weeks.
Now, Giannis has not looked phenomenal in the playoffs. Far from it. It’s not like his lack of playoff success can be attributed to his teammates alone; Milwaukee’s losses have been team efforts – Giannis included. But given his profile as one of the top players in the league, it’s inevitable that he’ll be the focus of the conversation if his team gets bounced by the Heat, not his teammates. For that reason, it just seems more and more likely that he’ll try to go to a team where he won’t always be the focus of the opponent’s defensive scheme – or the focus of the criticism following a loss in the playoffs. We think Milwaukee’s pitch to him this offseason will be similar to what the Clippers pitched Kawhi Leonard last year; pick someone you want to be teammates with, and we’ll try to make it happen. That would help Giannis not just from a playmaking standpoint, but from an attention one as well. There would be another big name player who could take some of the spotlight, as well as some of the criticism.
Whatever happens with the Bucks this year, let’s all just hope Giannis doesn’t go to Golden State next season. We don’t want the Warriors to win three of the next four championships again…