Янис Адетокунбо Майами Хит рүү солилцоогоор явлаа

The Milwaukee Bucks traded Giannis Antetokounmpo, the most accomplished player in franchise history, to the Miami Heat just before the team’s self-imposed deadline of the 2026 NBA Draft, a league source said. ESPN was first to report the deal.

The move ended a 13-year run for Antetokounmpo that included two NBA MVPs, the Bucks’ first championship in half a century and years of questions about whether the player and team would ever part ways. This time, the saga finally led to a separation.

The Bucks will receive Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakučionis and three first-round picks.

Antetokounmpo, 31, averaged 27.6 points, 9.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists in just 28.9 minutes per game, but he made only 36 appearances — many on a minutes limit — as he worked through multiple injuries during the 2025-26 season. It was the first time Antetokounmpo missed making an All-NBA team since 2016, and the injury-riddled season broke a streak of seven consecutive first-team All-NBA honors.

Once seen as an unknown, skinny rookie from Greece, Antetokounmpo played 13 seasons in Milwaukee after the Bucks selected him with the 15th pick of the 2013 draft. By his fourth season, he had developed into an All-Star. Two years after that, empowered by a new system under then-head coach Mike Budenholzer, Antetokounmpo blossomed into a perennial MVP candidate and one of the best players of his era.

With a tenure in Milwaukee twice as long as that of iconic Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Antetokounmpo departs as the franchise leader in minutes, games played, points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals.

Antetokounmpo led the franchise to its second NBA championship with an amazing postseason run in 2021. After suffering a knee hyperextension in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals that was supposed to keep him out at least six weeks, Antetokounmpo returned to action in Game 1 of the NBA Finals just six days later and proceeded to lead the Bucks to their first championship since 1971. He scored 50 points in Game 6, tying Bob Pettit for the most points in a finals-clinching victory, and took home the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP trophy.

“Now they respect us, man. Milwaukee is on the f—ing map again, you know what I’m saying,” Antetokounmpo told The Athletic after the championship parade through the city. “They gotta put some respect on our name.”

The pursuit of a second championship, however, has not gone the way Antetokounmpo and the Bucks wanted. The closest the franchise made it back to the mountaintop was a second-round exit the next year; the Bucks crashed out in the first round the next three seasons and missed the playoffs this year. This season’s result led to serious discussions between Antetokounmpo and the Bucks about parting ways.

The possibility agonized Antetokounmpo, as he told The Athletic in an exclusive interview in February.

“We always go back to the Bucks, the Bucks, the Bucks, and if I’m going to stay here, if I’m not gonna stay here,” Antetokounmpo said. “Let’s put the Bucks on the side for one second. Let’s talk about the city itself, the memories that I’ve created here. When you open my kids’ passports, it says Milwaukee, Wis. Born in Milwaukee, Wis. I had four kids in the span of the last five years in this city. My dad is buried in this city. I’ve built a house for my mom 10 seconds away from my house. Literally, to walk to my mom’s front door, it takes me four seconds … right next door.

“On what planet, on what Earth, would somebody want to leave this?”

But, as he has said several times, he needs the opportunity to compete. This season, the Bucks finished 32-50, 11th in the Eastern Conference and 11 games behind the Miami Heat for the final Play-In Tournament spot. Those struggles brought Antetokounmpo’s future with the team to the forefront.

Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee has often been discussed over the last eight seasons, but he and the franchise have always found a path forward together. After the Bucks’ first deep playoff run with Antetokounmpo and eventual exit in the 2019 Eastern Conference finals, Antetokounmpo’s willingness to sign a supermax extension was questioned in a report by ESPN. That turned into a long saga in 2020 before Antetokounmpo eventually signed the largest contract in NBA history (at the time) with the Bucks.

In 2023, two seasons after winning the title, the Bucks fired Budenholzer and hired first-time head coach Adrian Griffin. Before the start of that season, though, Antetokounmpo made clear in an interview with The New York Times that his team needed to be serious about competing for championships.

“Winning a championship comes first,” Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t want to be 20 years on the same team and don’t win another championship.”

One month later, the Bucks swung a blockbuster deal for superstar Damian Lillard. Antetokounmpo extended his contract shortly thereafter. Ultimately, the partnership didn’t work out, as Lillard tore his left Achilles tendon in the 2025 playoffs. Though it was the third straight first-round exit for Milwaukee, it was also the fourth consecutive postseason injury — after Khris Middleton’s MCL strain in 2022 and Antetokounmpo’s lower back injury in 2023 and left soleus strain in 2024 — that significantly affected a Bucks postseason run.

With Lillard sidelined for the entire 2025-26 season, Bucks general manager Jon Horst stunned the league by opting to waive and stretch Lillard’s contract to create room for center Myles Turner and hopefully help the Bucks stay in the playoff picture. Nevertheless, the drama surrounding Antetokounmpo’s future started early in the season.

During training camp, an ESPN report brought trade discussions between the Bucks and New York Knicks to light. Though then-Bucks coach Doc Rivers refuted that report, Antetokounmpo acknowledged that the offseason is a time when temptation can be very real for him.

Speculation about Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee continued once the Bucks’ season started to go sideways. In early December, ESPN reported that Antetokounmpo’s agent had reached out to the Bucks about what would be best for the 10-time All-Star.

When Antetokounmpo got back on the floor in late December after missing 14 of the Bucks’ first 31 games, he returned on a minutes limit, but the Bucks were winning games. Despite winning four of his first five games back, Antetokounmpo regularly critiqued the game plan of his former coach. Leading into the 2025-26 season, Rivers and the organization touted a vision of Antetokounmpo as a point forward, using his playmaking to get the most out of a roster built around him, but when he returned, Rivers did not use him that way.

Pointing to Antetokounmpo’s minutes limit, a desire to avoid putting too much wear on his body and the emergence of Kevin Porter Jr. and Ryan Rollins, Rivers used Antetokounmpo more as a screen-setter and roller in two-man actions. Antetokounmpo regularly criticized the decision until his second injury in late January.

With the trade deadline approaching, rumors about Antetokounmpo’s future started to swirl again, and then, a week before the trade deadline, Horst took the unprecedented step of actually considering trade offers for him.

“I want to be here, but I want to be here to win, not fighting for my life to make the playoffs,” Antetokounmpo told The Athletic two days before the deadline. “I’m not used to inconsistent basketball. I’ve played so many years of consistent basketball, I am not used to it anymore.”

In the end, Horst and the organization chose to hold on to Antetokounmpo for the rest of the season, but the drama persisted in Milwaukee.

As first reported byThe Athletic, the Bucks approached Antetokounmpo about not playing in the final 14 games of the season as he tried to return from an injury. He did not play another game for the Bucks, ultimately missing the final 15 games of the regular season, but maintained throughout the process that he was healthy and ready to be cleared to return to action.

The disagreement led to an investigation from the NBA, with both parties disputing claims made by the other side, but the league ultimately ruled the team would not receive any discipline for any alleged tanking activity.

Immediately after the season, Rivers announced he was stepping down as coach, and the Bucks quickly hired Taylor Jenkins as their next one. At Jenkins’ introductory news conference, Bucks co-owner Jimmy Haslam told reporters the Bucks would look to decide about trading Antetokounmpo before the draft, echoing a sentiment Horst shared with local beat reporters in the final week of the season.

Now, Antetokounmpo has been traded by the only franchise he has ever known. And he will begin the pursuit of a second championship with a different team.