The Miami Heat traded literally everyone but Bam Adebayo for Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis
The national nightmare that was the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade saga is finally over after the Milwaukee Bucks agreed to send the two-time MVP and 2021 Finals MVP to the Miami Heat in a deal that has been rumored for the better part of a month and speculated about for the better part of three years.
Miami is sending Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis, three first-round picks including the 13th pick in Tuesday night’s draft, one pick swap, and a second-round pick to Milwaukee, with Bobby Portis also heading to Miami to match salaries in a deal that both teams will officially execute on July 6.
Shams was loving it with the “franchise icon” Giannis Antetokounmpo
Remember Giannis’ tweet back in February where he said he wasn’t leaving Milwaukee? The one where Bucks fans flooded the replies with loyalty emojis and Greek flag graphics and “legends don’t run, they attract” quotes that they’d been parroting for years to convince themselves that their franchise player was different from every other superstar who eventually demanded out of a small market?
This aged perfectly lol
Anyways, none of that matters. Giannis is heading to South Beach and Shams Charania, who has been trying to speak this trade into existence since roughly 2023, was right the entire time.
All that pushback from the Bucks organization and their fanbase, all the “loyalty” talk, all the “legends stay” discourse on social media, and it ended exactly the way everyone outside of Milwaukee knew it would end, with Giannis taking his talents to South Beach because that’s where every superstar in the NBA eventually goes when they want to win and live somewhere warm at the same time.
The Package Is Heavy on Picks and Light on Stars
The Celtics were the other finalist and reportedly offered a package centered around Jaylen Brown, the 2024 Finals MVP, along with two first-round picks.
The Bucks chose Miami’s offer instead because Jon Horst apparently preferred a combination of young rotation players and significant draft capital over one proven All-NBA player, which is the kind of decision that will either look brilliant in three years when those picks convey or catastrophic when Brown is still making All-Star teams and the Bucks’ draft picks land in the 20s because Miami is winning 55 games a year with Giannis and Bam Adebayo.
Miami’s package includes unprotected first-rounders in 2031 and 2033 along with the 13th pick in this week’s draft, a pick swap in 2030, and a 2033 second-rounder on top of the four players heading to Milwaukee.
That’s a substantial haul for a rebuilding team and the unprotected nature of those future firsts gives Milwaukee the upside of potentially landing lottery picks if Miami declines after Giannis ages, but the Bucks are also betting that those picks will be valuable, which means they’re betting that the Giannis-Adebayo pairing in Miami won’t work long-term.
If Miami becomes a perennial contender with Giannis, those unprotected picks in 2031 and 2033 are going to be late first-rounders that don’t move the needle for Milwaukee’s rebuild.
The real question I have about Miami is who exactly is playing basketball alongside Giannis and Adebayo next season because the Heat just sent Herro, Jaquez, Ware, and Jakucionis to Milwaukee along with Portis.
That’s a significant chunk of their roster and their youth and their depth gone in one trade, which means Pat Riley is betting everything on the Giannis-Bam duo and whatever he can cobble together around them in free agency and with the remaining roster spots. That’s a very Pat Riley move and it’s either going to result in a Finals appearance or a spectacular disaster with very little room for anything in between.
Pat Riley Finally Landed His Whale
Pat Riley has been angling for a superstar acquisition for years after the Jimmy Butler era ended without a championship and the Heat spent the last few seasons stuck in the middle of the Eastern Conference without enough talent to contend and too much pride to rebuild.
Riley has built his entire legacy on landing franchise-altering players, from LeBron James to Shaquille O’Neal to Chris Bosh to Alonzo Mourning, and Giannis is the latest name on a list that spans three decades of Riley walking into a room and convincing the best players in basketball to come play in Miami.
Pretty Solid Resume Here
The man is 80 years old and still pulling off trades that reshape the Eastern Conference landscape because Pat Riley doesn’t retire and Pat Riley doesn’t rebuild and Pat Riley doesn’t accept mediocrity. He just waits until a superstar becomes available and then makes whatever deal is necessary to bring that player to South Beach regardless of the cost.
The cost this time was significant with three first-rounders, a swap, a second, and four rotation players, but Riley has never cared about future picks when the present involves pairing a two-time MVP with an All-Star center in a city where free agents want to live.
Small Market to Big Market. A Tradition Unlike Any Other
Every time a superstar leaves a small-market team, the same discourse plays out online where fans of the abandoned franchise cope by talking about loyalty and legacy and how real champions don’t leave, and then two years later nobody remembers the loyalty tweets and the player is winning games in a bigger market with better weather and a more attractive roster. Giannis won a championship in Milwaukee in 2021 and that title is never going away, but the idea that he was going to spend his entire prime in Wisconsin while the organization around him failed to build a consistent contender was always wishful thinking from a fanbase that desperately wanted to believe their situation was different.
It wasn’t different because it’s never different. The NBA is a star-driven league where the best players eventually end up in the markets that can attract other stars around them, and Miami has been the preferred destination for that kind of player movement for over two decades.
LeBron went to Miami. Bosh went to Miami. Butler went to Miami. Now Giannis is going to Miami because Pat Riley has built a franchise that superstar players trust to put them in a position to compete for championships, and Milwaukee couldn’t match that pitch no matter how many loyalty tweets Giannis posted in February.
The trade is done, the picks are headed to Milwaukee, and the Greek Freak is heading to South Beach. The Eastern Conference just got a lot more interesting for everyone who isn’t the Knicks or the Heat, and the Sixers are watching from the outside wondering if Gansey can build something fast enough to compete with the arms race happening at the top of the conference.
Join The Chase
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