The mid-season trade deadline is February 5 but Milwaukee is in no hurry and may well wait until the summer. Milwaukee wants "blue chip young talent and/or a surplus of draft picks." Miami, Minnesota, New York, and Golden State are "serious suitors" for Antetokounmpo.
While this news is a dramatic departure from the previous public stances of Milwaukee and Antetokounmpo, it was expected by the cognoscenti. For the "Heat", it is a dramatically positive development. They're in the ballpark. The team has had 11 and one-half seasons of an average record of 44-38. Antetokounmpo would instantly deliver them from that purgatory of mediocrity. For the same reason it is also a defining moment in Pat Riley's last years. The "Heat" haven't landed a "whale" since, by my lights, LeBron James sixteen years ago. Jimmy Butler, in the undersigned's opinion, was a very big fish but not a whale. Of course, the undersigned does not know what Minnesota, New York, and Golden State have in mind, but I do think that if Riley is willing to include Bam Adebayo, with whom Antetokounmpo is largely redundant and a significant upgrade, Miami could land this whale. And with Bam as the lynch pin, to the extent that Giannis has a say, and the reporting today from Shams Charania is that the org. and player are working collaboratively, I think Miami would vault over the two Leastern Conference suitors as a title contender and preferred destination for Giannis.
