Milwaukee Bucks ownership, led by governor and co-owner Wes Edens and co-owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam, agreed to trade one of the game’s top 75 all-time players in Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat, the Journal Sentinel learned on June 22. Milwaukee is also sending out Bobby Portis Jr. in the deal.
In return, the Bucks will receive the Heat’s 2026 first-round draft pick (No. 13), Greenfield native and 26-year-old guard Tyler Herro, 25-year-old forward Jaime Jaquez Jr., 22-year-old center Kel’El Ware, 20-year-old guard Kasparas Jakučionis, unprotected first-round draft picks in 2031 and 2033, a first-round pick swap in 2030 and a second-round pick in 2033.
Team sources have maintained to the Journal Sentinel for more than a year that the goal of any trade involving Antetokounmpo would be to secure as many young players and draft assets as possible.
The trade will not be finalized officially by the June 23 NBA draft, so the Heat will make their selection but that player will be sent to the Bucks. The new league year begins July 6 at 11 a.m. CT.
Ironically, Edens said Miami is a model organization in the way it has continued to turn over its roster and remain competitive. The Heat have been to six NBA Finals, an additional conference final and won two championships while missing the playoffs three times since 2010-11.
“They’re probably one of the real examples of you don’t have to go through some rebuilding thing that’s a dumpster fire, that you can actually really make it happen,” he told the Journal Sentinel in 2024.
Sending Antetokounmpo to their Eastern Conference rival, with his intent to sign a maximum extension six months after the finalization of the trade, the Bucks have now given the Heat an excellent chance to continue to make it happen.
Obviously, the Bucks feel their return (and what those players and future picks can potentially be turned into) can help them bounce back from a 32-win season under new head coach Taylor Jenkins. Jenkins signed a six-year deal worth about $60 million to return to the team he coached as an assistant in 2018-19 under Mike Budenholzer.
At Jenkins’ introductory news conference, Jimmy Haslam maintained that ownership told the coach to not come to Milwaukee if it was contingent on Antetokounmpo being on the roster.
“I just think he’s prepared for whatever direction things go with the Bucks,” Budenholzer told the Journal Sentinel before the trade. “He obviously can coach Giannis and I think will be a great person and a great person to coach and lead a team with Giannis. And if for some reason they decide to pivot and go another direction, for whatever reason, he’s going to coach whoever’s there and I think is really capable of whatever is needed in just a lot of ways.
“His personality, his makeup, he’s just really, really smart, really highly organized. He was the perfect get for them. So I think they’re very lucky and I do think, whatever is needed, I think he’s very capable.”
The deal wasn’t wholly unexpected, though, as the Bucks began to field offers for Antetokounmpo at last season’s trade deadline. It was the first time the organization seriously considered moving on, which set the stage for offseason discussions. Ultimately, the Bucks held onto him in the hopes of landing a more lucrative package in the summer.
“If Giannis does play somewhere else, we ought to get a lot of assets,” Haslam said on May 6.
Antetokounmpo did have somewhat of a say in his destination, but he did not limit the Bucks to only one team to negotiate with. His leverage was to say he would not sign a maximum extension with potential suitors, but the Bucks made it clear they would work within his list of teams he would sign with. A league source told the Journal Sentinel in late May that Antetokounmpo would extend in Boston and Miami.
The trade ended a tumultuous final year between the organization and its greatest player. On the court, he played a career-low 36 games while suffering an adductor strain, multiple calf strains and a knee hyperextension and bone bruise. Antetokounmpo averaged 27.6 points on 62.4% shooting. He also averaged 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists.
He played only 12 games at full speed as the other 24 he appeared in were either under a minutes restriction, or he was injured in.
Off the court, the season was similarly problematic. Antetokounmpo’s season controversially ended on March 15 at Fiserv Forum after he suffered the hyperextension of and bone bruise in his left knee after he landed awkwardly following a dunk in a win over Indiana.
He insisted from that day on he could play, even welcoming an investigation into how the team was handling the diagnosis and return-to-play protocols. The NBA eventually found no issues with the Bucks’ process.
From May through September 2025, Antetokounmpo mulled his immediate and long-term future with the Bucks despite being under team control for two seasons, which is an annual thought experiment for the superstar. But the team did hold superficial trade discussions in the summer and trade discussions ramped up again in the run-up to the February 2026 trade deadline.
“The answer of ‘why now’ is, it’s probably all the way back to when you get to these points in tenure with each other,” Bucks general manager Jon Horst said in April. “I think it’s likely, like Wes [Edens] said [in March], that you either figure out the path forward and you align and you kind of agree to commit to each other on who you want to be and what that looks like and eventually an extension. Or you try to find the best resolution for everyone.
“I think that it’s just the ‘why’ is not that complicated. It’s just different now than it might have been two years ago, or three years ago. And that’s OK.”
Antetokounmpo also waffled on his commitment to the team throughout the season (which he said he regretted in an April podcast), but at the end of the year, he told the Journal Sentinel he was finished in Milwaukee.
As a franchise, the Bucks recorded their first losing season since 2015-16 with their 32-win campaign and parted ways with head coach Doc Rivers after the season. They began the season having made the playoffs for nine straight seasons, the second-longest stretch in franchise history and trailing only Boston (11 at the time) for the longest active streak in the NBA.
Giannis Antetokounmpo said goodbye to Milwaukee
On Feb. 3, just before the trade deadline, Antetokounmpo effectively dictated a love letter to the city of Milwaukee to the Journal Sentinel in a passionate interview:
“This is probably going to be the best story,” he began, “In 20 years, they’re going to be talking about this story right here.
“I came here when I was 18. A human being, when is the time they have their earliest memories? Around the age of what, 4, 5, right? So from 5 to 18 is 13 years. From the time I could remember. I came here from 18 to 31, which is 13 years. I’ve spent more time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, than in my country.
“I’ve created more memories in this city than in my country. The only memory I knew from my country is sell stuff in the street, go to practice, live in fear, protect my brothers as much as I can and be a good kid, be a kind kid.
“So here, I’ll tell you what I’ve known here. I’ve known what it is to be an NBA player, what it is to make it to the NBA. I’ve learned what it is to be an all-star player. I’ve learned how to be a champion. I’ve learned how to be an MVP. I’ve learned how to be a father. I got married in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And also, legally, from the courthouse. And also, I’ve had my kids here. My father is buried here. So tell me you, when I open the passport of my kids and it says born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my dad is buried here, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(Editor’s note: Former Bucks owner Sen. Herb Kohl helped the Antetokounmpo family relocate to the United States legally in 2015.)
“So people have the audacity to come tell me and say ‘this guy really doesn’t love Milwaukee.’ I don’t love Milwaukee? Not the people that know. The people of the city know how much I love them. This city has let me be myself, let me be [a] father, have let me [be] a husband, have let me be my own, true, self.
“I’m walking in the street. People don’t bother me. But there’s gonna be the whole other people, because here’s 8 billion people in this world that have their own opinion. Opinions are cheap, that’s why everybody has one.
“They let me be myself in this city. And I ask for one thing. One. Thing. Only. To make, bring joy back. To. This. City. Because this city deserves it. We’ve been at the top and I know we can have down years but we have to continue to have the mindset. Period. OK. And if that’s not the case, then …
“I’ve seen the love of the people and what they wish for me. If it’s not the case, and people have different agendas within our own team, something gotta change. That’s all.”
Antetokounmpo’s last public appearance in Milwaukee was April 14, in an abbreviated signing at the Antetokounbros Shop in downtown Milwaukee.
Giannis Antetokounmpo honors
Giannis Antetokounmpo achievements
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks career records
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Bucks trade superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami Heat
Reporting by Jim Owczarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Jim Owczarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
