Is Giannis’ championship window with the Bucks CLOSED?! Marc J. Spears says YES! | NBA Today

Is Giannis’ championship window with the Bucks CLOSED?! Marc J. Spears says YES! | NBA Today

There’s still nothing set in stone about whether Janso will stay in Milwaukee or whether he will be leaving. The constant question that Giannis has is, can I win a championship with this roster? Three straight seasons here being eliminated in the first round. He wants to win a second championship. Throws it down. The Greek freak is a Greek NBA champion. A very tough decision for him. This is 12 years he spent there. Years maybe find another remix in Korea. So we staying in Milwaukee. Probably. We’ll see. Giannis may not ever have to put on a Bucks jersey again to go down as the best player in Milwaukee’s franchise history. With all due respect to Kareem Abdul Jabbar, take a look at just some of the categories that Giannis is the all-time Bucks leader in. Giannis is only on the brink of joining Kevin Garnett as the only players in league history to be the franchise record holder in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. Uh like Kevin Garnett, Giannis seems like he genuinely wants to make things work out there in Milwaukee. However, unlike KG, he’s already won a title. So, Mark, does Giannis have a path to win a second championship with Milwaukee as it stands right now? No. Uh this team is not good enough. uh they don’t have the point guard needed to get to that championship level. Miles Turner is fantastic. I just even with the East kind of being depleted from an injury standpoint, just overall talent. No, I I could see this maybe second round at best. Yeah. I mean, they’ve been second round at best for a little while here, but I think in all of those playoff series, they had key injuries, and I I’m not willing to write them off yet. I don’t think they’re going to be favored over the Knicks or the Cavs or any other teams and probably not even the Hawks or the Magic, right? But would would it shock me if they popped up to the three seed? No, cuz they got that man right there. And as long as he still says that he wants to be in Milwaukee and he’s on the team, I’m not picking against him. And I think guys like Kyle Kuzma, he’s going to be better. He needs to learn how to space and get open for Giannis. It’s hard to learn in that in especially in the middle of the year how to play with Giannis. He had to do that with LeBron. LeBron’s a little different animal than playing with Giannis, right? But I think Miles Turn is a great addition and especially in that East, especially in the East where so many injuries are affecting. I don’t know. That looks limited to me. He’s at the top of the Isn’t he like the best two-way player in the game? Yeah. Like isn’t that supposed to mean something in your prime? Only a few years removed from a 50point game in the clincher in the NBA finals. If Giannis is who we all think he is, he they should be in the conversation. I’m with Ramona on this one. And we saw Miami Heat get to the finals, the eight seed a couple years ago. Obviously, the Pacers, no one had them going to the finals next year. Have some patience. Let this team come together. See what you have. And guess what? You don’t have to win next year. You haven’t won since 2021. You can look at the big picture and say, “This might be a rocky period in my time with the franchise.” But this will allow me then to someday retire having only played for the Bucks. If you get through this period, but see, that’s the thing that But that’s the thing that I’m thinking about with Giannis, though. Does he want to wait that long to win another championship? cuz it sounds like right now he’s fine with maybe looking at somewhere else if Milwaukee is not able to win a championship. Jiannis and the miracles now like this is predating you. There was a move called the fish that saved Pittsburgh where Julius Irving like led this band of Bandits to to title. But where are you going to go where it’s guaranteed? He just saw Dame D just left the one place you ever Okay. No, I agree with you. And and they didn’t win, right? So it’s not that easy to go somewhere else and I’m not saying they should leave. Okay. Okay. I’m just saying. And I also think they’re not even going to listen to anybody right now. You call the Bucks right now and say, “Let’s talk about Giannis.” They’re not going to take your call cuz they don’t listen to anybody on this unless Giannis comes to them and said, “I want to be elsewhere.” And he has not done that. Everything he has said all summer long has been showing that his heart is still in Milwaukee. It seems like he wants to give this another chance. Now, he’s obviously evaluating. Seams has reported this at the beginning of the summer and at the end of the summer. And and the fact that it’s he’s still evaluating at the end of the summer is something to me. Yeah, but wasn’t replaced. But think about anybody who trades for Yan, if this ever gets to that point, you’re going to have to give up so much to get him. I mean, the return for a player like that would be astronomical to the point where what would what team would he even be joining? That’s my point. That’s the other thing is finding out where he would go, where he would fit in terms of give up. Exactly. Who’s willing to give up those assets? All right, let’s get to our offseason vibes, summer vacation plans around the NBA. Starting over in China where James Harden is on his yearly Adidas tour. Oh, and Jimmy Butler also there with Jackie Chan learning some martial arts. There you go. Of course he is. We have to make our way over to China because they’re having a good time. Oh, this is that’s a a sitcom buddy com buddy sitcom waiting to happen right there. Less eventful than the entire time. How about Slam at Metife Stadium this past weekend? Tyrese Hallebertton was front row. Of course, the New Jersey crowd didn’t give him the warmest welcome. They actually booed him. But he hit a key role in the final round. John Cena versus Cody Rose. Ramona, how big of a fan is Tyrese Hallebertton? During the finals, I remember asking Tyrese Hallebertton, does he stay off social media at all? Does he turn his phone off? And he says, “Yeah, except I do kind of scroll and find out what’s going on in the WWE week to week.” Like everything else is blocked out except for he still keeps up on wrestling. That’s how on Smackdown. Oh yeah, and Jay Brunson. Exactly. Both big fans. A naturalist. All right. Damen Lillard going back to his roots. He was named the new GM of Weaver State men’s basketball. Dame played four years for the Wildcats. Mark Chanty Bilips already said he’s going to make Dame the most expensive assistant coach in the NBA history. While he’s rehabbing that Achilles injury, how busy will he actually be? Well, I mean, if he’s trying to get players to Weieber State, he’s going to be real real busy. He’s going to have to take in his pocket and just playing Dave. He Dave knows all these guys from Oakland. If he just recruits Oakland. Yeah. Uh he got one player from Oakland to go to Weieber already. I think he’ll that’s his waters. All right. From Weieber State to Philly where Joel Embiid caught a Phillies game over the weekend. Dave, we know your Phillies are first in the NL East. But Ramona, what can we expect from their superstar on the hardwood this season? Oh, well, he looks okay there. And let’s see if he is ready for training camp. You hear a lot of things out of Philly, but it’s when we see him in person, when we see him in camp, and then see how he’s recovered from that offseason knee surgery. It was the way you started it, you was like that that that said everything. Right. Exactly. That said everything that you needed to say. Uh sticking with the Phillies, they acquired a new closer, Yoan Durant, whose nickname is Darula, who also came along. Yeah. With the trade with his entrance music from the Twins, DDJ. How much of a miss was it for Katie not to lean into the servant nickname as opposed to Darula here? The that okay, not going with Darula is a miss. The biggest miss is Slim Reaper. How do you leave Slim Reaper on the table? It was the perfect nickname for Kevin Durant. There’s so many possibilities. I think Slim Reaper should live on. Luca just lost all the way. Let’s give Luca Slim Reaper now and just give it to him. That’s local Don. I just like the Don for Luca. The Don little mafioso. Okay, you know what? So, now that we’re all thinking about nicknames in the NBA, let’s go to some of our favorite nicknames. Like, I’ll start with you, Mark. Which one do you like? Y’all tripping cuz this is just genius. Grand Theft Alic. The way he gets behind people and hides and steals. He’s been doing that since Georgia Tech. Yeah. Yeah. Whoever came up with that nickname. I mean, watch this. Look how he just comes. Come on. Hey, whoever whoever came up with this nickname in New Orleans and really creative out there. Genius. Grand Theft Alvarado. Grand Theft Alvarado is actually a good one. It’s a lot to say though. It is. It’s a mouthful. You know, when you do nickname supposed to be I feel like to the point. Uh, what you got? All right. I’m I’m a dad. I love dad jokes and I love the puns. Great barrier thief. You can’t go wrong with Great Barrier Thief. Dyson Daniels. Yeah, it’s a little bit long, but it’s just still Dyson Daniels. just the defense that he provides, the name, the location, everything just works perfectly. It’s not really doesn’t have that Atlanta flavor, but you know, we’re working on that. Austral lemon pepper sign on there, but right now, great barrier thief is just such an incredible nickname. Okay, that is a good one. A little bit long, but Ramona, what you got, you guys? There is only one perfect nickname in the NBA, and it was given to this man by Mike Miller. People don’t know the the background of the Joker nickname. He couldn’t say Jokic, so he called him Joker. And it’s perfect. It’s the way he plays. The Nuggets lean into that that introduction every time. He’s lean into it. He’s wearing the seat. He’s unpredictable. This was actually great. He did this. To the point where like sometimes I just call him Joker. Like I like you forget that Jokic is his name cuz Joker is so perfect. He makes shots like that, the sombo sling, like out of nowhere, the behind the Come on. It’s the best nick. I love And I love that he actually leaned into it and showed up in a whole Joker outfit. His brothers are like real life Batman henchmen. So wait a minute. You know what? You are right. I’m not going to lie. I went with the Slim Reaper where Kevin Durant because I mean that’s just the best one between Slim Reaper also easy money sniper. You can’t go wrong. Got a bunch of nicknames. And he picked the worst one. The servant. Like what are we doing? You can pick the worst one. I mean come on. This is what Kevin Durant does. This is why he’s a slim reaper. Easy money sniper. Anything that you want to call him. Absolutely. He’s able to do it out there on the court. But give me Slim Reaper every single time. That’s going to be my favorite one. Uh Dave, what you got? So Ramon, I’m surprised you didn’t go with this one because he was one of your uh subjects of a story you wrote in the playoffs. A great read. Chamber. That’s great. I love it. His nickname is like Adamia. It tells you what he’s doing to you defensively. He’s going to torture you out on the perimeter. He’s going to make it the longest night of your night. the longest night of your life, I should say, where you’re out there on the court. He’s got that incredible physicality, knows the angles. It’s a perfect nickname. It is a perfect nick. And he also kind of leans into it on social media, too. He’s actually a very nice guy off the court, but so he doesn’t call it the Dorcher Chamber, he just calls it the Chamber, which is even better. That’s almost like go by the champ now. But we have also mentioned Luca Don earlier playing in the 2025 basket. The field is deep with NBA talent at the top of course Jokic Giannis is in there as well. Luca but basketball is truly a global game now. Other allars include Shangon, Porzingis, Lorie Markin and so many familiar names that will be in action in this tournament and we were talking playing for Germany. Yeah. And we talked about it earlier Dave. I mean the fact that these guys they love playing for their country and they’re going to go full throttle. And I love guys like like Dennis Shruder right he’s a role player in the NBA but for Germany he’s a star. Like Zachary Reisha, I want to see him go back with the confidence of NBA experience and be the star for his home country. Yeah. No, it’s amazing. Every time I see them out there playing for their country, it’s like a different fuel that they come out there with. Especially when I’ve seen like Luca play and everybody, I’m like, “Wow, this is like Keep an eye on Star and Kula Bali, though. My wish wizards guys.” There you go. All right, guys. Keep it locked on ESPN for some more Little League action coming up after this.

On NBA Today, Dave McMenamin, Marc J. Spears and David Dennis Jr. discuss the latest storylines in the NBA, including Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future with the Milwaukee Bucks, taking a look at what players around the league are doing this offseason and more!

0:00 Giannis’ stats over his career
2:00 Can Giannis win another championship with the Bucks?
4:36 Does Giannis want to be traded?
5:30 Offseason activities around the league
7:30 Who has the best NBA nickname?

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