Giannis Set To Meet With Bucks Management | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

Giannis Set To Meet With Bucks Management | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

Giannis. Yes. Uh Mark Stein, our friend over at Substack now, uh he wrote a piece this week where he reported that the Bucks are, as you’d expect, set to meet with Giannis. But the tone of the conversation with Milwaukee, according to Mark, is that they’re going to try to sell him on next year being kind of a gap year for this team and being able to retool for the 26 27 season. Now, we talked about that being uh a possibility for Dallas uh given their certain situations. Giannis, though, a little bit different. He’s got two full guaranteed years left on his contract. So, he’d have to make a commitment to the Bucks in order for them to kind of you go forward with this type of plan. Um well, wouldn’t he like I mean, you’re not going to like they’re not going to let Giannis go into a walk year, I don’t think. Do you? I just don’t. Is any player ever going to a walk here anymore? I I think when you say he’s going to have to, you are still under the assumption that if he doesn’t tell them I’m here long term, they should deal him. And I am still under the philosophy that while you have Jana Doupo, you keep Jana Doopo and you try to do everything you can the whole time to build as good a team around him as you can have. And then whenever he walks out the door for whatever it ends up being that you get back for him, you say, “We had Giannis and we won a title.” And I I just I’m going to continue to say that while yes, there’s winning and there’s misery, Pat Riley. Yes, winning isn’t everything is the only thing. Thank you. Great to the Green Bay Packers. The point is not everybody wins every year. It takes so much to get there. We just talked about it. the luck, the bracket, the this, the that that if they can keep him, whether he tells them he’s there for the next 10 years or not, they try to keep him. They try to talk him into this gap year idea, the Doc Rivers idea. I’ve seen a lot of things floated about what they’re going to say to him in the meeting. And hey, Jiannis, stay in the East. You never know. Look what happened this year. I don’t think they’re going to deal him East. I think they watched that blow up with Drew Holiday. And I don’t think they didn’t try to let that happen. Portland kind of screwed them over on that one. I don’t know. They Nobody There was not a single soul alive when they made that deal that thought Drew Holidayiday was going to play a game in a Trailblazers. I’m not sure they believe. In fact, I know they didn’t believe he’d won Boston. Like that that was one of those like ah but maybe you’re right. Maybe they learned from that. I I I just I don’t think that we talked about what front offices can and can’t do at Dallas. They cannot trade Cooper flag away. I think after you have traded away Drew Holiday and had him turn around and beat you for an NBA title and win in his next city, I do not think that you can put Giannis in the Eastern Conference. To have a guy who is that emotionally connected to your city and then to have him come in multiple multiple times a year and rip your heart out is not something I think that they want to do. And by the way, they don’t really have to make some wrenching decision. The best offers for Giannis are going to come from the west. Correct. Anyway, so one of the argument points to say to Giannis in that meeting is if you really want to go, we will trade you, which I think has been their position, but this is where we’re going to trade you into. And you tell us like does that put you in so much of a better shot to guarantee you’re going to get a title in the next two or three years? Play that roulette, play that math, play that injury, play that everything else bracket, or do you want to stay here and see what we can do? And I I don’t think it’s an uncompelling argument. if he wants to go, if it’s just more important to him than anything to win a title, I I agree with you. I don’t think it’s likely he wins another title in Milwaukee. But it isn’t he literally telegraphing that in interviews that he does like he does he does what? Well, he talks in podcast and he talks in some interviews that he believes his career would be disappointing if he didn’t win another said it on his brother’s podcast, right? He goes on Twitter in the middle of all of this chat and who, you know, did you send him a question? I did not send him a question. That would have been pretty good though. I almost did. Let’s just keep resending. Like, do you want to be in Milwaukee? Do you want to be in Milwaukee? Who Who do you Who did he rank as his number one player was Myama? Steph Curry. Oh, Steph. Oh, yeah. Of course. Let me fuel those Let me fuel those Warriors rumors. We do a Kaminga sign and trade, right? Where’s Bobby Marsh? Knows exactly what he’s doing. Um, but he hasn’t said he wanted to leave. He wants to leave. And I do think there’s a difference between if Milwaukee walks in that meeting and they say, “Okay, we all know we’re in an inflection point. like let’s talk about different options. That is one approach. The other approach is Giannis, we want to keep you. We intend to keep you. If you ask us to trade you, we will trade you because we you’ve done us a solid. It’s been a dozen years. You got us a title. But unless you ask us to trade you, this is the path we see forward. That is putting Giannis in a different position than saying, “Hey, these are our options.” Because you are asking him to say to the people of Milwaukee, to say to the team, to say to his teammates, I want to leave. And different guys have different feelings about doing that sort of thing. And I don’t know how he’s going to feel if he is put in the position to have to say it. I do think that the ace in the hole that Milwaukee has is John Horst and the equity that he has with Giannis Tentacmpo. I mean, this is a guy that twice has faced, you know, maybe not literal tough questions, but some tough questions from Giannis about the future of this team and responded in ways that have satisfied him. You know, responded in getting Drew Holiday, giving up all the draft capital. It didn’t pay off, but responded in getting Damen Lillard when Giannis knew this team needed to need a little bit of something else to get over the hump in the Eastern Conference. Um, I think if John Horst, who will have a plan, who will have be able to say to Giannis, look, X contract comes off the book here, we can trade this guy for that. You give us one more year, all of a sudden some of these 2030 draft picks are unlocked, we can deal them in future deals. I think that could have a a influence over Giannis. The problem is though, Rachel, I keep going back to this, like guys like Giannis don’t get to walk ears. Like when you when you have a guy with that type of talent, if he’s not going to commit to you prior to that final year, you got to deal him. You have no choice. This maybe is where we completely disagree. Like I could I could not do what you seem to want the Bucks to to do, which is to make Giannis like choose with a player option or or opting out and going somewhere else. Make him choose that. Like it’s like to me the Let’s see how the years go, right? Let’s see how they actually finish next year. Let’s see if he, by the way, can stay healthy because of the last three playoffs, two of them, he’s he’s been the one who’s been injured. And I don’t think he holds that against the Bucks and I don’t think the Bucks can sit there and say, “Hey, this isn’t on us or our team building here.” Um, let’s see how the health goes of the year. By the way, if you get through if you get halfway through and I don’t know if they would get there to your point about Giannis make a commitment, would they keep him on the roster? If if he doesn’t if he walks into that final year as a walker if it’s not going well at the first half of the season, I know you can’t get the same thing for Janisento at the trade deadline when he’s only got three more months on his contract as you can right now. I get it. I understand that it’s significantly different. I get that. However, it’s not like you’re not getting anything. If you look at a bunch of teams in the middle of a season who think that they are a Giannis away, and by the way, almost everyone thinks they’re a Giannis away, and you put them up for auction, then you’re talking a year and a half, then I’m just saying that the options aren’t as limited as everybody as as many of the conversations I’ve heard people say that they are. And again, I would just keep coming back to trade him for what? The possibility of what in the future, even in the Cooper flag conversation, by the way, which I don’t think either side is going to do. But you are hoping in your hoping of hopy hopiness that Cooper Flag can end up being a Yantis Koopo letter level player in what how many years down the road? Three, four. You think in three years Cooper Flag is going to turn into a perennial MVP candidate? No, but I think five I I think there’s an MVP cannon in him. I think that’s for sure. So, five years from now, where he, by the way, will be two years away from walking. Yes. For free. I It’s just there’s so much uncertain between now and then. If Giannis is on your roster, to me, I do everything I can do to keep him on my roster in a week or in Eastern Conference. I don’t know how long it’s going to take Dame to get back. I don’t know who’s going to pop up unexpectedly next year on that roster who might, you know, John Horse maybe make some moves around the margin we don’t expect. We’ve got players in award category voting this year who were weren’t even starting on their old teams last year, right? I mean, there there’s just things happen in the NBA every year. Injuries happen you don’t expect. Jason Tatum’s now out for the whole next year. I mean, I I just think you have him on the roster, you keep him on the roster. You don’t if I am the Bucks I am not presenting him with like well we could go this way and trade you or we could go this I would present him with a case to stay and if he stays great go forward and see what you can do and if he doesn’t he’s got to ask to leave I think the reality is that every month you hold on to Jan Dumpo beginning in in June really beginning next month um the pool shrinkens a little bit like I think for what of teams that would be interested in acquiring him. The or the teams you could potentially deal with. I think right now with Giannis having two years left in his contract, you can base a deal him wherever you want. Not that you would they would collaborate with them on all this. They would do that, but you could do what Portland did to Damen Lillard where Dame didn’t want to go to Milwaukee, but Milwaukee had the best offer. They dealt him there and they got a bunch back in return. So, so if if teams really went all out, we think that Houston probably has the most they can offer. I think Houston would be the most interested, invested, uh, in going to get him. Yes. And what would they send back to Milwaukee? Uh, everything not named Aman Thompson. And just do it. Jaylen Green’s contract. Um, I think they’d probably like to hold on to Al Prince Sangon. Um, I have to look up the the numbers of what they have there, but they they could come they could put together a deal that would probably appeal to Milwaukee. Okay. And that and an injured Damen Lillard you are taking into next season. And what kind of team are you going to be? I think you’re an average team. I don’t think it matters, right? They don’t really control their draft capital. What about the next year? They’re not good. Like, what about the next year? Depends what you get for draft picks. Like, I’m like, you’re getting a bunch of draft picks back in return. That That’s Boy 18 and 19 year olds are not even the Cooper flag that you’re describing. Not. But the top pick in next year’s draft must be really good, too. Like, so great. You’re still not. You were so down on picks. I’m not. I’m just saying that this this idea that like, oh man, we’re not going to win. Tear it all up. Yes. Is is just such a strange morphing of where we are. I get it. And I feel I feel for your wife. Well, I feel for your wife all the time for so many reasons, but this is just one of them. Um, if you ain’t winning, you’re losing. You’re losing, man. I mean, all the little phrases, it’s great. They sound good on a bumper sticker. Yes. But it’s not how it works. Like you can go decades without winning. You can do everything right and only get one title out of a team that you think is going to go on a dynasty run. Like it doesn’t work this way. It does on We all on paper are like, “Oh man, tear this up, do this, then they’re going to get these picks and that could turn into this.” No one is turning into Jiannis and Kumbo. But do you think, let me just put a button this way. If Giannis is facing free agency and the Bucks do not look like a team that can compete for a championship, do you think that Giannis is going to do what like Dirk Ditzky did at the end and, you know, just stick with the team that drafted him that so he can finish his career? I don’t believe that. I I don’t know. I don’t believe that. You know, look, the nothing he has said makes me believe that. I’m not just going off like guesses like he’s the one that keeps saying I got to win championships. He keeps saying it. Yes, he does. Let’s see where we are in a couple years. Let’s see what the league looks like. Let’s see who’s in the west. Let’s see where his options are to go. When he has the option to go, and by the way, one of those options is now. Yes, he could walk into that office and say, “I want to trade. Please deal.” He doesn’t have to. All he has to do is walk into the office and say, “I’m not going to sign an extension.” Okay. Same thing. But, okay. So, let’s say, play it out in the other direction. I just asked you to play it out. If they dealt him for the biggest possible package. Yes. If they dealt him for the biggest possible package, they’re not winning next year. They’re not winning the year after that. They’re not winning the year after that, and they’re not winning the year after that. You cannot tell me that a trade with Houston sets them up to win a title in the next four years. Not with everything else going on in this NBA. No, but if you can get uh let’s put San Antonio in play because I think they’re in play. You get Dylan Harper, you get Stephan Castle, you get Kell Johnson, you think San Antonio is giving up all of that? Maybe. I think Milwaukee would ask for it. They’ll definitely get I think they asked for it, but Dylan Harper a lot of people in love with Dylan Harper these days. Let’s do it. Let’s say you get Dylan Harper. You get Stephen Castle. Are you winning a title in five years? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Are you winning a title in five years with Giannis? That’s my point. You’re making my point. No, but I think I think that there are more the possibilities are it’s more likely to win a title. Let’s say let’s say Giannis says he wants to stay or doesn’t ask for a trade, but doesn’t sign a long-term deal. Doesn’t recommit as you said. Yeah. Right. Let’s say they get to his walker and he’s still saying, “I don’t know. Let’s see.” Let’s say that they don’t have a breaking if that happened. I get it. But okay, fine. So then you deal him at the deadline. You don’t get It’s tough to deal guys with that contract the deadline. I know Jimmy Butler got traded. He had a big contract, but it’s really tough to deal guys like that. I think that if Giannis goes on the trading bunk, someone will figure out how to get again. But I think the pool shrinks of the teams that are going to be able to go and get. But then you’re two years further down the road into getting some of your picks back. You’ve got some other stuff going on. And you will have had two years of Giannis. And I just don’t think you throw all of the bathwater out with your proverbial baby. Oh, I would throw I would I would throw the sink, the bath water, any liquid in the house. I’m throwing it out. So, you can be an average team five years from now. Not. But you’re that I don’t I disagree with the premise of your statement. I don’t believe that it’s a guarantee you be an average. What if Dylan Harper turns out to be the next great thing? It’s not a guarantee you’ll be an average. I’m just saying that you’d have to bank on them not being an average. An average is average for a year. I think they’re going to be 500 team next year. I think there’s 500 team 500 team with Janna Santao. All right. I feel like we’re gonna have this argument many many many times over Rachel Nichols over the last of the next couple of months. We will leave it there because I’m right and I’m going to go I’m excited for this argument. Just be negative somewhere else. Yeah.

Chris Mannix and Rachel Nichols get into Giannis Antetokounmpo meeting with the Bucks and if the team will lay out a plan to keep him with the team
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