Draymond Green has never been shy about addressing the NBA’s biggest storylines, and the growing uncertainty surrounding Giannis Antetokounmpo and his future in Milwaukee is no exception.
The two-time MVP and his agent have opened discussions with the Bucks about “Milwaukee’s future,” the noise around a possible exit has reached a new level, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported.
Those rumblings only got louder after Antetokounmpo appeared to scrub his Instagram account of Bucks-related posts. Green laid out exactly why moving a superstar like Giannis is far from simple.
“We all know that Giannis wants to compete at the highest level,” Green said speaking on The Draymond Green Show. “A lot of people made a lot of noise about him deleting all Milwaukee Bucks references off of his Instagram account. If you’re Giannis and you’re trying to press the team to do something, those are the types of things that you would do in order to make the team realize, ‘I’m not happy … It’s going public now. Y’all better figure it out.’”
But beyond the optics, Green explained the real obstacle: money.
“What I will say is, it’s not the easiest to trade someone that makes $50 million, because, in most cases, you usually have to depete your whole team, just to even make the salaries work; it limits the amount of teams that Giannis can go to. He’ll have a list of clubs that he’d be comfortable going to, that he’ll share with the team, and I think they’ll try to make it happen.”
Antetokounmpo is owed $54.13 million next season and remains under contract through 2027, a figure that instantly complicates trade mathematics for nearly every contender. Even the Warriors, a team Green admitted would provide one of the “more intriguing” fits next to Steph Curry, are already paying Curry and Jimmy Butler north of $50 million each.
With Milwaukee sitting 11th in the Eastern Conference and far removed from its championship form, Green believes the franchise would “try” to accommodate Giannis should he ultimately request a move.
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