BREAKING: Giannis Antetokounmpo is still a Milwaukee Buck.
To most Bucks fans, this isn’t breaking news. The trade deadline is over, and despite the endless recycled garbage spewing in and out of the ESPN studios over the last several weeks (years), Giannis Antetokounmpo is still a Milwaukee Buck.
To ESPN’s credit, there’s been no better time to force-feed their desired narrative. The Bucks have struggled mightily since November and haven’t contended for a championship since winning one in 2021. Before Tuesday, they had lost eight of nine and were 18-29 on the season.
You have to go back a full decade — nearly exactly, actually — to find when the Bucks had last been 11 games under .500.
Conveniently, that year began the countless attempts to pry Giannis from Milwaukee.
Those times were much different than now. The Bucks had high hopes behind “Owning the Future”.
Some believe they have. Others believe they haven’t owned enough of it (so far).
And while injuries and upsets have derailed parts of this future, there was exuberant vindication today, when ESPN’s Shams Charania “reported” that the Bucks were “keeping Giannis Antetokounmpo through the trade deadline.”
We don’t need to go down the avalanche-sized list of “reports” leading up to this point. Nearly all of it was the same regurgitation of nothing.
Fans, Networks Thirst for Player Movement
Player movement in the NBA drives much of the discussion. Fans are infatuated with star players signing with or being traded to new teams to contend for championships.
It is one of the most talked-about topics in all of sports, so the idea of someone like Giannis going anywhere else has long been a fantasy for the masses.
We all saw what the Luka Doncic trade did to the Dallas Mavericks fanbase. Yes, they got lucky and landed a top lottery ball a few months later, but the damage done is nearly irreparable. Breaking that news shattered the NBA landscape, and fans — and clearly networks like ESPN — want more.
Only now has it fallen further under the microscope because the Bucks haven’t been close to another ring in nearly five years. Many believe Giannis is too high-caliber a player to stick with any team below championship level.
But Giannis is 1-of-1. He’s never been, and will never be, someone who wants to jump ship like so many other superstars he plays against.
For any non-Bucks fan, if you hadn’t read this interview from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Tuesday, you’re simply choosing to avoid being best informed.
https://twitter.com/BucksLead/status/2018907566907195845
This is precisely why this has been so frustrating for the Bucks and their fans. Many non-Bucks fans suggest Giannis’ “situation” is similar to the Jimmy Butler-Miami fallout or why Kevin Durant is on his fifth NBA team.
It is not, never has been, and never will be either of those, yet ESPN does not try hiding it whatsoever. Any manufactured narrative they can recycle? They run it immediately, because they know the reaction it elicits.
All NBA Fans Deserve Answers
Many non-Bucks fans are upset— and rightfully so. The top NBA news reporter essentially promised that one of the league’s top players would be on the move for the first time in his 13-year career.
They were hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok, and flat-out deceived.
No matter how many times we tried preaching that this wasn’t different, very few believed it, until now. Many fans are turning on Shams for his Russell Westbrook-esque empty stats on Giannis.
https://twitter.com/NBATourDates/status/2018465379283280162
The media cycle will undoubtedly rear its ugly head again, and as we have written about before, the rumors are here to stay until he either a) signs an extension or b) the Bucks start winning again. But perhaps this time, people won’t feed into it as much.
RELATED: Giannis Trade Rumors Are Here to Stay
The Media War on Giannis Has Been a War on Silence
As we noted last year, the media war on Giannis is a war on silence. Whenever the Bucks and Giannis are at their peak, ESPN was silent. The second they lose? “Let’s get him outta there for the good of the league.”
And because the Bucks have been losing way more this season, there’s been nothing to shut them up about it— no matter what verbiage Giannis uses to ultimately say “I would like to stay”. They want Giannis anywhere and everywhere else.
Even a literal closing of a trade window isn’t enough to shut them up. They’re already focused on the next opportunity to recycle their garbage— the offseason.
Vindication for Bucks Fans
It’s been fun for us at Bucks Lead to mock the “reporting” over the last several weeks, but it is utterly embarrassing for ESPN and Charania when the Bucks themselves take a stand and joke about next week’s Celebrity Game, where the Antetokounbros are coaching Charania’s team.
That one felt great, as did posting this one.
Two can play at this game, Shams.
Giannis posting the elite meme video, “I’m not leaving, I’m not fucking leaving!” from The Wolf of Wall Street, minutes after the trade deadline, with the caption “Legends don’t chase. They attract,” was pure poetry and the cherry on top.
Until next time, ESPN.
Leave a comment