It finally happened. (Naturally, it happened approximately 8 minutes after I went to sleep.) Shams with the report.
- Heat receive: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bobby Portis
- Bucks receive: Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel'el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis, 2026 first (No. 13), 2030 swap, 2031 first, 2033 first, 2033 second
Let's break things down.
Miami Heat
At long last, the Heat have landed their next superstar white whale. It only took a million years, but they did it. The question now is whether they actually vaulted themselves into championship contention, and if so, for how long they will remain in that mix.
The Heat essentially gave up the pu pu platter here, cobbling together as many assets as possible to make up for the fact that they didn't have a true blue chip asset to throw into the mix. They've been trying to use this package or one like it to acquire a superstar since at least the Damian Lillard trade saga, and they landed one who is an even better player despite the fact that there was another suitor apparently offering at least an All-Star (Jaylen Brown) in return, and possibly more than that.
And then there's the actual player they landed, who is one of the five best guys in the league, having made First Team All-NBA every single season between 2019 and 2025. He also finished top-10 in Defensive Player of the Year voting in each of those seasons, having won the award in 2020 and made All-Defense in the first four of those seven campaigns. I think people have forgotten just how good Giannis is, because he missed most of last season with his various injuries.
First and foremost, Giannis the best rim pressure guy in the league, and last year he was having the best two-point shooting season of his career thanks to the fact that he took 61% (!!!) of his shots within three feet of the rim. He gets downhill as well and as quickly as anyone in the history of basketball. He doesn't shoot threes anymore and his mid-range conversion rate fluctuates between terrible (like last season) and great (like the year before) but mostly resides in the "acceptably below-average" range, but that's all fine because of what he does at the basket.
The Heat have struggled to generate shots around the rim in recent seasons; that shouldn't be an issue so long as Giannis is healthy — even if they don't have terrific spacing. Giannis can drive through or around anyone in the league, and he's generated paint touches at an elite rate no matter with whom he's been surrounded during his career. I'm fully confident that he'll do the same in Miami.
He's also obviously a very good passer for his position, and he is nearly an automatic trip to the free-throw line every time he touches the ball. (He's had a free-throw rate above .500 every year since 2019 and nearly hit .600 last year after topping that mark in both 2022 and 2023.) Those aren't quite free points because his foul-shooting has regressed since he peaked in the 76-77% range just before becoming a true MVP candidate, but even a guy hitting at a 65% rate like he did last year is generating more efficient scoring than a standard offensive possession.
He's not quite an offense unto himself, but he's pretty close. When you are a walking paint touch, you can pass on the move, and you can create free throws at the rate Giannis does, you are more than likely going to be the centerpiece of a good offense. Since Giannis became an All-Star in 2017, the Bucks ranked 13th, ninth, fourth, eighth, sixth, third, 12th, sixth, and 11th in offensive rating before last season, when he played only 36 games and Milwaukee plummeted to 24th. That's a top-eight offense, on average, with top-five upside during his MVP-level years. We've seen no evidence of a drop-off in skill level in recent seasons, so he should be able to anchor a top-10 offense if he can stay on the court.
Meanwhile, he and Bam Adebayo are going to make it basically impossible for opposing teams to score inside the arc. They both cover so much ground defensively that it's going to be absolute hell to find the right angles at which to shoot or even throw interior passes. The combination of agility and length are so scary to picture.
And then Giannis protects the rim from the weak side as well as anyone not named Victor Wembanyama, which makes up for the fact that Bam is a good but not great defender in the immediate vicinity of the basket because he's only 6-9. Opponents shot just south of 65% when Adebayo was within five feet of both the shooter and the basket last season, per NBA Advanced Stats. It was 71% the year before that, 59% before that, and 65% the year before that. Over the four-year sample, that works out to right around 65%, which isn't a particularly strong number. Giannis, on the other hand, has checked in between 51% and 58% in all but one season since 2017, and in that season he was down at 42%, which is basically unheard of.
'The Heat ranked a surprising 13th in defensive rating last season, but since Adebayo became a full-time starter in 2020, they had previously checked in 11th, seventh, fifth, ninth, fifth, and ninth before last year. That's an average finish of a top-eight defense in a given season. Throw Giannis into the mix, and they obviously could be even better.
The line for being a true contender is generally finishing inside the top 10 on both offense and defense, and the Heat now have the foundation to do that given how strong the track record is for both of their star players. The question is whether they'll be able to fill out the rest of the roster in a way that allows them to actually do it, on both sides of the ball.
Miami is quite thin elsewhere beyond Giannis and Bam. The rest of the roster consists of Portis, Andrew Wiggins (who has a player option for next season), Nikola Jovic, Davion Mitchell, Dru Smith, Myron Gardner, Jahmir Young (team option), and Pelle Larsson (team option), while Norm Powell is an unrestricted free agent.
Wiggins has his $30 million player option for next season, and we don't yet know what he's going to do with it. Ideally for the Heat, he declines the option and re-signs for more years at a lower starting salary. But that's only possible if he declines the option, and if he decides he wants to stay in Miami if he does.
Wiggins at $30 million, plus Giannis at $58.5 million, Bam at (conservatively) $49.5 million (his contract is estimated because the cap number hasn't come in yet), Jovic at $16.2 million, Portis at $14.5 million, and Mitchell at $12.4 million is already around $181 million worth of salary. Throw in Smith, Gardner, Young, and Larsson and you're at nearly $191 million for just 10 players. The first apron, which the Heat have to stay under after taking back more money than they received in this trade, is only $209 million. They might not be able to retain Powell unless either he or Wiggins takes less money. (Brian Windhorst already speculated this morning on Get Up that Powell could be gone.)
If they can't bring back Powell, I'm not sure where the spacing is coming from on this team. (Even if they do bring Powell back, it's pretty precarious because none of the bench guys are shooters and while Bam has started taking threes in recent seasons, he doesn't hit them.) It's already an extremely unbalanced roster with a heavy lean toward the frontcourt, and if Powell leaves, there's a gaping hole at the off-guard spot unless the Heat want to start Wiggins and Larsson (or Jovic) along with Giannis and Bam, which I would say is less than advisable. Finding a way to spin Portis and/or Jovic into something else, perhaps multiple pieces who make less money, would probably be the best course of action here, so that they can rebalance the roster with more guards and especially more shooting. I'm just not sure there's a chance any team would be interested in Portis, nor in Jovic at his number given his injury issues and especially how he played when healthy last season.
The Heat could have a tough time filling out the roster given their lack of financial resources (especially if they re-sign Powell and have to really skimp on every remaining roster spot), but they are also among the best and most experienced teams at finding guys on the margins who can turn into rotational contributors. Given that Giannis is now in the fold, though, they could end up being among the most attractive teams for players willing to sign for the veteran's minimum.
There's also the question of what this will look like in the future. Giannis is "only" going to be 32 years old this season, but he has a lot of miles on his odometer and has had persistent injury issues over the last few seasons. He plays a physically demanding style and has taken a lot of punishment over the years.
Players of his archetype tend to start falling off in their early-to-mid 30s. Other players of his caliber in this era have defied traditional aging curves (LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, etc.), but that doesn't mean he'll definitely do the same. You can hope for it, but you can't just assume it. Can he remain a top-five player in the out years of his presumably-incoming maximum contract extension? It's not a guarantee. And if he's not that level of player, where does that leave the Heat? How long — and how wide — is their title window going to realistically be open, if it's open at all?
The bookmakers have already installed the Heat as the third-most likely East team to win the Finals, behind the Celtics and the defending champion Knicks. Is being the third-best team in the East worth all the Heat gave up? I think so. But are they actually the third-best team? Are they definitely better than the Pistons and the Cavaliers and the Hawks and the Hornets and the Raptors and the Sixers and the Magic? Is that true no matter whether they re-sign Powell and/or Wiggins or not? I think that's more of an open question. I can definitely see the argument for it, but I'm not sure it's a guarantee — especially given that Giannis is likely to miss time and that he has rarely been healthy for the playoffs in recent seasons.
I like the swing for the Heat. They were going nowhere fast in their current iteration, and they've long needed a foundational superstar to supercharge their path to contention. Giannis, at his healthiest and best, is obviously such a player. The question is whether he'll be at his healthiest and best, and for how long, and whether the Heat will be able to surround him with enough talent for it to matter both now and in the future, when they'll be significantly hamstrung in terms of the assets available to them to add talent to the team.
Milwaukee Bucks
It has always been my belief that when trading a superstar, you want to get three things in return:
- Potential star(s) on rookie-scale contracts
- Significant draft capital
- Cap relief
I think the Bucks went something like 1.5-2 for three when you look at things through that prism, as they seemingly prioritized a quantity-over-quality approach to asset accumulation.
Let's start the with cap relief. The Bucks were set to pay Giannis and Portis a combined $73 million in 2026-27, and the two had player options worth a combined $78.4 million for the 2027-28 campaign, though Giannis was likely to decline his so they would be left with the $15.6 million option for Portis and whatever Giannis would have taken on a new deal, had he been interested in returning to the fold.
Herro and Jaquez are heading into the final year of their respective deals, though they are both extension eligible. The two of them, along with Ware and Jakucionis, will cost around $47.5 million this season, meaning the Bucks saved around $25.5 million this year alone. We'll see what happens with Herro and Jaquez, but Ware and Jakucionis combine to make around $11.2 million next year, so there are undoubtedly some savings there as well.
In other words, the Bucks did quite well on the cap relief front in the immediate term, but we'll have to wait to see how they do in the long term. If they extend Herro and/or Jaquez, that eats into their savings. If they move one or both of them in later trades, that would obviously affect the savings in some way as well.
The draft capital is complicated. The No. 13 pick in this year's draft is a good, but not necessarily great chip. It gives the Bucks two lottery selections, which is nice, but neither of them are in the range that would give them access to the true potential superstar-level talents like AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cam Boozer, or Caleb Wilson, who could potentially revitalize the team themselves in a post-Giannis world.
Could they package the two picks to move up and get one of the point guards that everyone is excited about? Or will they stick and pick and try to get two pieces around whom they can build for the future? They obviously know you can land a superstar outside the top 10, having drafted Giannis himself with the No. 15 pick. Given that their approach in this deal seems to have been based on quantity over quality, I think I'd expect them to make both picks, so they get as many rolls of the dice as possible as they try to land their next franchise centerpiece.
The 2030 pick swap is not likely to be particularly valuable given the respective situations in which the Bucks and Heat are going to find themselves over the next few years, but stranger things have certainly happened than two teams' fortunes reversing themselves within a four-year span. Especially when one of the two teams goes all in and somewhat limits its ability to add talent to the roster down the line.
I do like the idea of betting against the Heat by getting first-round picks deep into the future. The 2031 and 2033 Heat might not even have Giannis Antetokounmpo on the roster. Even if he's still there, he will be 36 and 38 years old, respectively, for those seasons, and will presumably not be nearly as effective as he is now. When you add in the obviously-significant injury risk (which likely will only increase with time), it seems like a pretty decent bet that those could be good assets, no matter how much you believe in Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg and Erik Spoelstra and Heat Culture.
The big unknown on those draft picks is under what type of draft system they'll be conveyed. The new lottery odds sunset after the 2029 season, when there is an opt-out in the collective bargaining agreement. We could be operating under an entirely different set of rules by the time these picks come available to the Bucks. What if we're using The Wheel and one of those draft slots comes in 30th? What if it comes in first? What if we're using the draft credits system that has been talked about and the Bucks have to bid on picks? It's really hard to value draft assets when you don't know what the draft itself will actually look like.
If the current system stays in place beyond 2029, I think this is still a pretty good bet. The 3-2-1 odds are more favorable to teams like the Heat that always try to stay relevant and never tank. Maybe they'd behave differently if they knew that they were operating in a system where it's somehow more beneficial to tank if you're definitely losing your pick, but we haven't seen them behave that way yet.
Herro is not a future star, nor is he on a rookie-scale contract. Despite the fact that he's from Milwaukee, I expect him to be moved elsewhere, rather than play for the Bucks next season. Again, with the Bucks prioritizing quantity of assets in this deal, spinning Herro off for additional compensation makes sense. It's what the Blazers did with Jrue Holiday when they received him in the Damian Lillard trade, and it's what the Bucks should do here.
Jaquez is not a future star, either, and he's headed into the final year of his rooki deal so he has to be paid this summer or next. He was the Sixth Man of the Year runner-up and he's a solid role player. He could have some pretty good value on the market as well given his skill as a driver, passer, and rebounder. The defense leaves something to be desired at times but big wings are always in demand and Jaquez is one of them. If Milwaukee can spin him off for even more assets, it should.
The real dice rolls here are Ware and Jakucionis.
I've always liked Ware's skill set, though it's somewhat concerning to me that he's bounced in and out of both the starting lineup and Spoelstra's dog house during his two NBA seasons. Despite being a really interesting prospect in whom the Heat had a lot invested, he played just 22 minutes a night in both of his seasons as the Heat seemingly couldn't decide whether or not he could play alongside Adebayo, or if they even wanted him to. Still, a guy who can average 18 points and 15 rebounds per 36 minutes while shooting 39.5% from three on 233 attempts is a potentially very valuable player. I don't know that I believe in the shooting that much, but even if he can hit in the 36-37% range, that's really good.
Ware also has incredible mobility defensively and can cover a lot of space. He's pretty good in switches and can handle himself in most other coverages. His rim protection does leave something to be desired, despite pretty strong block numbers. Opponents converted 65% of their shots when he was within five feet of both the shooter and the rim last season, per NBA Advanced Stats, which ranked 42nd out of 52 players who challenged at least 4 such shots per game. If he has to play next to another big man in order to adequately protect the basket, he's a less valuable archetype of player.
Jakucionis is much more of an unknown. He played just 945 minutes as a rookie. He did have a stretch where he looked good for a few weeks surrounding the All-Star break, and he made 42.3% of his threes on the season, with treys accounting for an incredible 65.5% of his attempts.
But he did not get to the rim at all and he was terrible in floater range, resulting in his making only 43.9% of his twos. That's not a death sentence; plenty of rookies struggle from two-point range. But it shows that he has a long way to go, especially if the three-point shooting doesn't hold up. His free-throw percentage is encouraging on that front, but he did shoot just 31.8% from deep in college, albeit with good free-throw shooting there, as well.
He's a very adventurous passer, which I like, despite the fact that he had a pretty high turnover rate at 15.8%. You can see that coming down as he figures out what types of passes he can and can't make at this level. However, he also had a high turnover rate in college, so it might just be endemic to his style of play. He's not the best athlete and so he doesn't create significant advantages off the bounce, so he has to make a lot of plays in traffic.
Defensively, I think he held up better than expected in Year 1, though there is still plenty of work to do on that end because of the lack of athleticism. His size at 6-5, 200 pounds does help, but there's only so much you can do when you're just an average-ish athlete.
While Ware and Jakucionis are interesting prospects in different ways, I'm not sure I see star-level upside for either player. Can they be rotation pieces on a good team? Yes, I think they can. But if you're looking for foundational pieces for the next era of Bucks basketball, you're probably going to have to keep looking. Of course, that's why the Bucks got the other assets they got in the deal.
