On Wednesday morning, the NBA’s unofficial press secretary, ESPN’s Shams Charania, sent up the flare that the Golden State Warriors have been staring at the sky waiting to see for half a decade.
Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, the tweet read, is “ready for a new home.”
For Warriors CEO Joe Lacob, this was supposed to be the culmination of the Great Plan; the endgame. The entire organizational philosophy — the frantic hoarding of “assets,” the “Two Timelines” bridge that collapsed under its own hubris, the refusal to sell high on young talent — was ostensibly designed for this singular moment. The goal was to be standing there, chest out, ready to pounce when the next generational superstar finally shook loose from a small market.
And now that the moment is actually here?
The Warriors are walking up to the VIP section only to realize they don’t have enough cash for the cover charge.
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Let’s quickly revisit the phrasing of that report, because it is a masterclass in modern NBA media nonsense:
“Ready for a new home.”
It doesn’t say “he wants out.” It certainly doesn’t use the triggering words “trade demand.”
It says he is ready. Open to the idea, if you will.
It is the linguistic equivalent of a messy divorce where neither spouse wants to be the one to actually file the papers because they’re worried about how it will look on Instagram.
Between Giannis and the Bucks, no one wants to be the villain. No one wants to burn that bridge; they just desperately want to be on opposite sides of it.
It’s not that a deal cannot be made. And technically, it’s not as if the Warriors lack the salary filler to make the math work. They can cobble together the contracts. They can print out the trade machine screenshot. They can make an offer.
But can they actually make the deal? A winning deal?
Not unless the Bucks are reckless.
Jonathan Kuminga, once the jewel of the “light years” movement, is currently valued in trade talks somewhere between “light intrigue” and “salary dump.” Brandin Podziemski is a nice role player, sure, but his value in this deal seems entirely tied to the fact that he’s from Milwaukee.
And then there’s the Jimmy Butler component—an aging superstar on an expiring contract (up after the 2026-27 season) who is currently injured. Ironically, the injury makes this deal easier — it brings clarity from the Warriors’ perspective — but for the Bucks, he’d be nothing more than a salary make-weight and maybe, just maybe, someone who plays a couple months in the city he played his college ball way back in the day. He’s a necessary part of this deal, but he’s hardly something to be excited about from Milwaukee’s standpoint.
That and a whole mess of picks — who knows how many will be needed — is the pu-pu platter the Warriors are bringing to Milwaukee.
Even if Golden State panics and shoves every single chip into the middle of the pot, they are drawing dead. They are trying to bluff against the asset-rich vault of Sam Presti in Oklahoma City, or the young talent stockpiles in Houston and San Antonio. Those teams have war chests. The Warriors have a coin purse.
And that’s not even mentioning the Eastern Conference sharks — Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, New York, Toronto — circling the waters.
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Because come June, the New York Knicks can unlock their draft picks. The Miami Heat can liquefy their assets. A new league year brings new perspectives and new assets, all of which the Bucks can use to their advantage.
Or, to put it more succinctly: the blinds at the table go up this summer.
Can the Warriors keep up with that? Because their offer is going to look the exact same now or later.
Perhaps I’m underestimating the marketplace. Perhaps the Bucks look at a Steph Curry-Giannis pairing and decide it won’t work — too old — thereby placing a premium on Golden State’s distant draft picks. They might not be wrong in doing that.
But the Warriors, driven by the merciless ticking clock of Curry’s career, are desperate.
For them, this has to work, and it has to work now. Because it is now or never for the Dubs.
And in their zeal to make the big move down the line, they failed to remember broke the first rule of the NBA’s Wild West trade market:
If you’re going to play the game, you’d best come correct.
Instead, the Warriors have walked into a shootout with a squirt gun.
And yet they’re wondering why nobody is ducking.
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