The decade in Giannis: An unraveling with the Bucks

Around April 2018, a 23-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo told Nick Friedell, then of ESPN.com, “one of my goals” is to spend his entire career with the Milwaukee Bucks.

“Kobe [Bryant] did it. Tim Duncan did it. Dirk Nowitzki did it,” he said, soon after a second All-Star bid. “I just want to be one of those guys … that stays for the city … for 20 years.”

Almost eight years later, Antetokounmpo’s partnership with the Bucks appears to have run its course. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported on Wednesday that “Antetokounmpo is ready for a new home” at the Feb. 5 trade deadline, and the Bucks “are starting to listen.”

“The writing is on the wall with Giannis,” multiple sources reportedly told Charania.

What, exactly, is that writing? A timeline of The Decade in Giannis spells it out for us: Antetokounmpo’s goal to win a second championship takes precedent over his goal to remain a member of the Bucks, and they can no longer provide him with what he wants.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is ready for a new NBA home. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

(Patrick McDermott via Getty Images)

He has said the same since he won his first title in 2021. Which takes us back to the fall of 2020, when a looming contract extension first drove rumors about his future, which feels so … familiar. Antetokounmpo becomes eligible for another maximum contract extension in October.

In the meantime, let us see how the past has informed Antetokounmpo’s present.

Sept. 8, 2020: The Miami Heat eliminated the Milwaukee Bucks from the 2020 NBA playoffs, winning their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals series, 4-1. Antetokounmpo missed the elimination game of that series with a sprained right ankle.

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Sept. 18, 2020: Antetokounmpo won a second consecutive Most Valuable Player award, joining Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon and Chicago’s Michael Jordan as the only NBA players ever to capture the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards in the same season.

Nov. 23, 2020: The Bucks acquired Jrue Holiday, pairing the All-Star and All-Defensive guard with Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez on a championship favorite. The deal cost Milwaukee the rights to five of its first-round draft picks (2020 and 2024-27).

Dec. 9, 2020: Entering the final season of his rookie-scale contract extension, Antetokounmpo said of his deal, “I’m not focused on that. I know my agent, Alex [Saratsis], and [Bucks general manager] Jon Horst and the Bucks ownership are focusing on those discussions, but I’m just trying to focus on myself — how I can get better, how I can help my teammates get better, how can we be ready Saturday to play our first preseason game?”

Dec. 15, 2020: Facing a midnight deadline, Giannis Antetokounmpo signed a five-year, $228.2 million contract extension that included a player option for the 2024-25 season.

July 20, 2021: The Bucks captured the 2021 NBA title, winning a fourth straight game to defeat the Phoenix Suns in a best-of-seven set, 4-2. Antetokounmpo was the Finals MVP.

Sept. 27, 2021: “Hopefully, we can give that feeling again to people,” said Antetokounmpo. “It might not be this year. Maybe it might be two years or three years down the road, but I need that feeling. I’m going to chase that feeling until my legs can’t move no more.”

May 15, 2022: Grant Williams scored a career-high 27 points, as the Boston Celtics defeated the defending champion Bucks in Game 7 of the East semifinals, 109-81.

Sept. 26, 2022: “I want to win a championship,” said Giannis. “Any way or the other I get it done, the feeling I felt, it was a nice feeling. And, you know, I kind of got jealous of Golden State, seeing them in the parade and in the ESPYs. You know that feeling now. You know what is getting stripped away from you. Hopefully God can bless us to win another one.”

April 26, 2023: The Heat ousted the Bucks from the first round of the playoffs, 4-1. Antetokounmpo missed two games of the best-of-seven series to a bruised lower back.

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Aug. 24, 2023: “Winning a championship comes first,” Antetokounmpo told The New York Times. “I don’t want to be 20 years on the same team and not win another championship.”

Sept. 27, 2023: The Bucks dealt Holiday and the rights to their first-round draft picks from 2028-30 to the Portland Trail Blazers for 33-year-old, seven-time All-Star Damian Lillard.

Oct. 2, 2023: “I gotta always look out for what’s best for me and my family, for my situation, but at the end of the day, I want to be a Milwaukee Buck for the rest of my career as long as we are winning. It’s as simple as that,” said Antetokounmpo. “What do you expect me to say? To be a Milwaukee Buck and be a loser? That’s never going to come out of my mouth.”

Oct. 15, 2023: “I always envisioned myself to be in Milwaukee for a long time,” Antetokounmpo told Andscape’s Marc J. Spears. “And I always say that I want to play 20 years. I want to be like Tim Duncan, like Kobe [Bryant], all those guys that played with one team for a lot of years and won the championship. But at the end of the day, before loyalty, winning comes first. We are judged on winning. I’m a winner. I want to win. And the words that I say, I feel like sometimes they’ve been taken out of proportion because I’ve said these words for four or five, six years now. And I don’t know why it’s different this time. It is different when your extension comes around, when your extension is three, four years down the road and you say those words like, ‘Hey, I want my team to be the best available team and I want everybody to be on the same page,’ nobody really cares.

“But when your extension comes around, it’s like, ‘Oh, he might leave.’ No, no, no. It’s not the case. I want the best possible team. I want to wake up every single day when I come to work and know that I have a chance to win. And I want the organization to be on the same page and not to be comfortable because we won one The decade in Giannis: An unraveling with the Bucks. So, what we going to wait 15 more years to win another one? No, no, no way.”

Oct. 23, 2023: Antetokounmpo signed a three-year, $176 million contract extension that includes a player option for the 2027-28 season, recommitting to the Bucks, even when it made more financial sense for him to wait until free agency in 2025 to sign an extension.

Oct. 24, 2023: “I had a conversation with my [brother Thanasis] … that it would make more sense for me to sign because I’d be able to — first of all, you don’t know what tomorrow holds — to have eligibility to re-sign in 2026 or I don’t remember when he told me, but that was the smartest thing to do,” said Antetokounmpo. “So I just kind of trust his thinking. But also for me it takes kind of like focus away from that. I don’t have to think about that. I don’t need the media talks to be about my contract and if I’m going to stay, if I’m going to leave. Because I knew in my heart that I wanted to stay. … I’m committed. I’m here. And I want with my teammates to be successful and I want to win another championship.”

May 2, 2024: The Pacers eliminated the Bucks from the first round of the playoffs, 4-2. Antetokounmpo missed the entirety of the opening-round series to a strained left calf.

Feb. 19, 2025: “I don’t think that I would ever text [and ask for a trade],” Antetokounmpo told Greece’s COSMOTE TV. “I am not this kind of guy. They would have to kick me out.”

April 29, 2025: The Pacers defeated the Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, 4-1. A healthy Antetokounmpo played the entire series, averaging a 33-15-7 across 37.6 minutes per game.

July 1, 2025: In order to sign Myles Turner to a four-year, $107 million contract, the Bucks waived and stretched the final two years of Lillard’s deal, committing to carry an annual salary of $22.5 million through the 2029-30 season for the point guard not to play for them.

July 2025: Antetokounmpo met with Bucks general manager Jon Horst to discuss his future with the organization, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, who reported, “Antetokounmpo aired his concerns about whether this team could truly achieve championship contention, and he wanted to explore whether there would be an alternative path forward for both the team and the player, league sources said.”

August 2025: According to Charania, the New York Knicks — the one team Antetokounmpo “wanted to play” for outside of Milwaukee — called the Bucks about their star, and the two sides entered a weeks-long “exclusive negotiating window” to no avail.

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 28: Giannis Antetokounmpo #34 of the Milwaukee Bucks reacts against the New York Knicks during the fourth quarter at Fiserv Forum on October 28, 2025 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images) — The Bucks and Knicks reportedly engaged in trade talks this offseason. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

(Patrick McDermott via Getty Images)

Sept. 23, 2025: “Look, I hope it never happens, but I’m expecting it to,” Antetokounmpo said of the possibility of a trade in an interview with Greece’s Sport24. “Just because you’ve given a lot to the team doesn’t mean the team won’t do what’s best for itself.”

Sept. 29, 2025: “Guys, every summer, there’s truth to every report. It’s the same thing I’ve been saying my entire career,” Antetokounmpo said on media day. “I want to be on a team that allows me and gives me a chance to win a championship. I think it’s a disservice to basketball to not want to compete at a high level, to want your season to end in April. It’s pretty much the same. I had the same thoughts last year. I had the same thoughts two years ago. I had the same thoughts five years ago in 2020. It’s never going to change.”

Dec. 2, 2025: Antetokounmpo “cleaned up” his social media, removing a ton of Bucks-related content, though not all of it. Speculation swirled about why he had done this then.

Dec. 3, 2025: Antetokounmpo and his agent resumed “conversations with the Bucks about the two-time NBA MVP’s future — and discussing whether his best fit is staying or a move elsewhere,” Charania reported. A resolution was expected “in the coming weeks.” Meanwhile, Antetokounmpo suffered a right calf strain, which would cost him eight games.

Dec. 10, 2025: Antetokounmpo met with “some of his teammates” to clear the air, urging them to avoid distractions and focus on basketball, “and he relayed the message that he can’t control what goes on or what even happens to him,” Chris Haynes said on NBA TV.

Dec. 18, 2025: “My agent is talking to the Bucks about it,” Antetokounmpo told reporters. “He’s his own person. He can have any conversation he wants about it. That doesn’t — at the end of the day, I don’t work for my agent, my agent works for me. …

I personally have not had the conversation with the Bucks. I’m still locked in, locked in on my teammates and most importantly locked in on me getting back healthy. …

“This is the most I’ve ever been talked about in my career. I’m in my house, with my kids and all that, and the TV is like, ‘Oh, Giannis is going to the Memphis Grizzlies, or Giannis is going to the Detroit Pistons.’ Which, hey, man, I’m not gonna lie: I’m the hottest chick in the game.”

Dec. 27, 2026: Asked if he wants to be in Milwaukee, “I’m here,” insisted Antetokounmpo, who returned from injury in 25 minutes of a victory against the Chicago Bulls. “I’m here. I’m here. Don’t ask me that question. I’m here. It’s disrespectful towards myself and my teammates. I wear that jersey every single day. Disrespectful to the organization, my coaching staff, and all the people that work hard for me to come out here and say, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ Don’t ask me that question. I’m here. I’m putting on the jersey, and as long as I’m here, I’m going to give everything I have, even in the last second of the game.”

Jan. 8, 2026: “There will never be a chance, and there will never be a moment that I will come out and say, ‘I want a trade,’” he told The Athletic’s Sam Amick. “That’s not … in … my … nature. OK?” So, it is decided, then?

“As of today,” he added. “You know how they say this thing about your significant other, or your wife, you always have to say, ‘As of today.’”

Jan. 13, 2026: As the Bucks were being blown out at home by a Minnesota Timberwolves team that was playing without Anthony Edwards, Milwaukee fans began to boo their team. Antetokounmpo soon responded by booing the hometown crowd, declaring, “Boo this.”

“I was definitely booing back,” he added. “When I get booed, I boo back. I’ve been doing it all season. … I play basketball for my teammates. I play basketball for myself and my family. When people don’t believe in me, I don’t tend to be with them. I tend to be against them.”

Jan. 19, 2026: Asked how confident he is that he will finish the season as a member of the Bucks, Antetokounmpo told reporters, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I take it day by day.”

Jan. 21, 2026: “We’re not playing hard,” he said after his team fell to 18-25. “We aren’t doing the right thing. We’re not playing to win. We’re not playing together. Our chemistry’s not there. Guys are being selfish, trying to look for their own shots instead of looking for the right shot for the team. Guys trying to do it on their own. At times, I feel like when we’re down 10, down 15, down 20, we try to make it up in one play, and it’s not going to work.”

Jan. 23, 2026: Antetokoumpo re-injured his right calf and declared himself out until “end of February, beginning of March.” The Bucks have not provided a more official timetable.

Jan. 24-25, 2026: Per Substack’s Jake Fischer and Marc Stein, “Numerous NBA front offices began operating under the belief in recent days — arguably with greater conviction than ever before — that a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade … had become unexpectedly possible,” and that his injury “does not appear to be dissuading interested parties.”

Jan. 28, 2026: The Bucks “are starting to listen” to “aggressive offers” from “several teams” for Antetokounmpo, who “is ready for a new home ahead of the Feb. 5 trade deadline,” and he has been, really, dating back to the end of last season, according to Charania.

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