"He Asked To Be Traded Already" - Brian Windhorst Has Officially Joined The Giannis Trade Speculation As The Smoke Continues To Grow

Jess Rapfogel. Getty Images.

Unless you're perhaps a Bucks fan who has chosen to bury their head in the sand as a way to avoid both the massive underachievement of their favorite team as well as all the new Giannis smoke, it's hard to avoid what's currently going on.

Yesterday was the social media scrub of Bucks-related posts on his IG and Twitter. A totally normal thing for a superstar player to do when he's very happy and has no thoughts of playing for a new team/city.

Today, Windy has officially entered the chat. As we know, once Windy starts talking, you'd better start listening. 

I'm sorry, excuse me? He's already asked to be traded??

If you're unfamiliar, this is obviously in reference to what took place over the summer and was reported in early October when it came to Giannis and the Knicks which came from Shams

ESPN - Ever since the NBA draft combine in mid-May, Alex Saratsis, an Octagon managing director and Antetokounmpo's U.S.-based representative, has fielded rampant interest in Antetokounmpo and conducted serious due diligence on best possible outside fits should the star and his reps push to be traded from the Bucks. Several teams were discussed internally, but one emerged as the only place Antetokounmpo wanted to play outside of Milwaukee: the New York Knicks, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation told ESPN.

The Bucks picked up the Knicks' call on Antetokounmpo, and the sides engaged in conversations for a window of time in August, league sources said, but the teams never got traction on a deal. The Bucks insisted to the Knicks that they preferred not to move Antetokounmpo, but those in Milwaukee believe New York did not make a strong enough offer to continue even discussing a trade, league sources said. It's unclear how the Bucks would have responded to an all-out chase by the Knicks. The multiweek process was described by one source with direct knowledge of the talks as an exclusive negotiating window.

New York, for its part, believes the Bucks never were serious about entertaining an Antetokounmpo trade, sources said.

The Knicks have had an eye on Antetokounmpo for the past couple of years under president Leon Rose, who heads a front office that built the franchise into a perennial playoff contender since taking over in 2020. People in league circles, including some in New York, have believed since 2024 that Antetokounmpo would eventually want to come to the Knicks if he ever explored a trade.

In the immediate aftermath of this reporting, Giannis did his best to kill it. How believable it was I guess depends on who your favorite team is

With Windy now coming out today and suggesting that the trade request has basically already happened and that's what sparked those Knicks conversations over the summer, perhaps Shams was actually onto something? Publicly, Giannis did what every star does. Deny deny deny. Control the narrative before the narrative controls you. But it was noticeable how he left the door open, and now here we are a few months later and the smoke is continuing to build. 

An while it's usually the go-to move at ESPN, Windy doesn't exactly throw around words just to go viral. He's plugged in. I think he's shown over the last few years that if he's putting something out there, it's most likely not bullshit. Is this him just supporting his fellow co-worker in Shams after all the back and forth between him and Giannis? Maybe. But also, why would Windy lie or just make that up? 

Before the last few days, I think you could live with Shams being really the only one pushing this trade narrative. Admittedly, he's been trying to speak this into existence since last February. He won't get off it to the point where it seemed like he was starting to get obsessed. But what if that's because he actually knows the truth and this is all very, very real?

So while Windy's comments aren't "new" per se in the sense that this is the "formal" trade request, it is notable context around what Shams reported. If those conversations actually happened, they only happened because Giannis and his camp requested it.

The overall point is, we've seen this movie a thousand times before in the NBA. You don't have this much smoke and this much reporting combined with a team that probably stinks, and it not end up in a trade. At this point, it feels like it's more of a question of "when" and not "if" we eventually get that Shams notification that Giannis has been traded. Where could he go? No clue. Everyone and their mother will call and put in some sort of offer, and we just need to pray that Sam Presti over in OKC doesn't pick up the phone and say 

"You can have the 2026 Unprotected Clippers pick in addition to 7 other 1st round picks"

because at that point we're all beyond fucked. They can figure out how to make the money work, and nobody has a better treasure chest of picks to help a team like MIL begin their rebuild, especially if that Clippers pick ends up being top 3 (which it feels destined to be).

So yeah, if you thought this story was maybe going to die down, I have some bad news. We're only getting started.