The Milwaukee Bucks are seven games below .500, have a -3.5 net rating, and are outside even the play-in in the East, sitting as the No. 11 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder are the defending champions and the best team in the NBA again this season. So, when the two teams met on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, the expected happened, and the Thunder easily handled the Bucks in a blowout win, 122-102.
After the game, a frustrated Giannis Antetokounmpo went off on his Bucks teammates.
“We’re not playing hard,” Antetokounmpo said, via the Associated Press. “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.”
All season long, the Bucks have looked much better — at least like a legit playoff team and maybe a threat — when the ball is in Antetokounmpo’s hands. On Wednesday, he had only had 11 shots (14 true shot attempts as he got to the line six times), and he has not had more than 13 shot attempts in his last four games. Part of that is how teams are defending the Bucks, overloading on Antetokounmpo and daring anyone else to beat them.
“I’m not the guy that will yell and cuss his teammate out and demand the ball,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’ve never done that in my career. But I feel like I’ve played with teammates that kind of understand the gravity that I can cause for our team, in how I can create for teammates and for myself, and how I can help the team be more successful.
“But maybe for some reason, I don’t understand — maybe because we’re young, maybe because we’re not playing well, maybe because guys think it’s their turn, they want to carry the team on their back and try to turn this around — but I really don’t get it. I really don’t.”
This rant will spark more noise from talking heads and on social media about the Bucks trading Antetokounmpo at the deadline, but the facts on the ground there have not changed. Milwaukee is not going to trade the best player in franchise history — the guy who drives the economy of their team in a smaller market — unless he demands it, and Antetokounmpo has said he would never ask for a trade. Add in Antetokounmpo’s massive $54.1 million salary, and trading him in the next two weeks is very difficult under the luxury tax apron-era CBA.
The Bucks are being very active on the trade market, looking to add major talent — Zach LaVine, Ja Morant, and other names are mentioned — and improve the team, not trade away their star and the face of the franchise.
While people around the league believe Antetokounmpo and the Bucks are headed for a split, league sources have consistently told NBC Sports it was most likely to happen in the offseason. That’s when Milwaukee will offer Antetokounmpo a max extension, and if he doesn’t sign it — as most expect — it is essentially trade demand without having to play the bad guy and articulate it. The Bucks will have to trade him or risk losing him for nothing in the summer of 2027 (where the Clippers, Heat and others are lined up with cap space, waiting). It’s possible Antetokounmpo will use the contract extension offer as leverage to get the Bucks to upgrade the roster (as they did with Jrue Holiday and later Damian Lillard when earlier Antetokounmpo extensions were up) and then re-sign with the team. But this time it feels different.
All of that is months away. Right now, Antetokounmpo wants to win with this team on the court and the Bucks do not look like even a playoff team.
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