Jamal CollierDec 29, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseJamal Collier is an NBA reporter at ESPN. Collier covers the Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls and the Midwest region of the NBA, including stories such as Minnesota’s iconic jersey swap between Anthony Edwards and Justin Jefferson. He has been at ESPN since Sept. 2021 and previously covered the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune. You can reach out to Jamal on Twitter @JamalCollier or via email Jamal.Collier@espn.com.
play1:13Milwaukee Bucks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game HighlightsMilwaukee Bucks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights
play0:20Giannis Antetokounmpo connects on alley-oopGiannis Antetokounmpo takes flight for alley-oop slam
play0:16Giannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flushGiannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flush
Tempers flare after Giannis’ late windmill slam (0:45)Tempers flare after Giannis’ late windmill slam (0:45)
Milwaukee Bucks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game HighlightsMilwaukee Bucks vs. Chicago Bulls: Game Highlights
Giannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flushGiannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flush
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO SECURED a long rebound and took a few deliberate dribbles down the sidelines, right in front of his team’s bench. As he approached midcourt, he began picking up speed.
The other players had begun walking up the court, anticipating the final buzzer. With nobody behind him, Antetokounmpo took a hard dribble and gathered the ball inside the arc before delivering a windmill dunk to punctuate a 112-103 victory.
Chicago center Nikola Vucevic was the first to meet him at the center-court line. He was followed by guard Coby White. Then the Bucks entered the fray to protect their star, with guard Ryan Rollins and forward Bobby Portis quick to separate Antetokounmpo from the scuffle.
Benches cleared and met at center court, but as the shouting and shoving escalated, Antetokounmpo began to walk off the floor. All season, as the noise around him has intensified, he has kept things moving.
The crowd at the United Center serenaded him with a loud chorus of boos as he made his way to the visitors tunnel, and just before he ducked his head underneath, Antetokounmpo threw his hands up to the crowd with two thumbs down.
“Who y’all checking?” Portis screamed down the hall as security staff members from both teams scrambled to keep players separated. “I’m right here.”
Rollins, who has emerged as perhaps the lone bright spot in Milwaukee during a season so far bereft of them, said he loved every part of the Antetokounmpo dunk.
“I’m not mad at it at all,” Rollins said after the game. “I love even after the fact too when [the Bulls] tried to press him, our whole team came out and we backed up Giannis.”
Whatever Antetokounmpo’s intent was, the play temporarily accomplished something else for the Bucks: combined with the win, it lowered the temperature around the franchise, which has been engulfed by the unrelenting chatter around the star’s uncertain future since media day in September.
Antetokounmpo has set the standard in Milwaukee, repeatedly stating his goal to compete for a second ring after leading the Bucks to the 2021 NBA title. But since then, the Bucks have won one playoff series, losing in the first round in the past three seasons.
“I’ve been 13 years in the league,” Antetokounmpo said. “If we keep on losing, brother, probably half of the team is not going to be here. At the end of the day, I just want to be available, be healthy and help my team win. And if [a windmill dunk] is what has to happen for everybody to wake up and understand we’re fighting for our lives and we got to get our hands dirty, so be it.”
The Bucks believe that with more than a month before the Feb. 5 trade deadline, they can climb in the Eastern Conference standings and assess the future then.
Antetokounmpo injured a calf hours after that report, and the Bucks’ struggles in his absence exposed the growing chasm between Milwaukee and championship contention.
Antetokounmpo has had chances to reaffirm his commitment to the Bucks this season but has often walked the line between reiterating his present with the only franchise he has ever known and the possibility that it would be “human to change his mind” down the line.
After saying in the locker room postgame Saturday that “half the team could be traded if they keep losing,” Antetokounmpo wasn’t interested in expounding which half he’d fall under.
“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here,” he said. “Don’t ask me that question. I’m here. It’s disrespectful towards myself and my teammates. I wear that jersey every single day. It’s disrespectful towards the organization, my coaching staff, myself and all the people that work hard for me to come out here and say, ‘I don’t want to be here.’
“I’m here. I’m putting on the jersey. And as long as I’m here, I’m going to give everything I have, even in the last second of the game.”
Just the same, team sources told ESPN that the Bucks still have a high belief in the roster they constructed around their two-time MVP. With 50 games left, the Bucks believe they have time to dig out of the hole they’ve created for themselves despite what the numbers say. ESPN’s Basketball Power Index gives the Bucks a 12.9% chance to make the playoffs and a 2.2% chance to make the second round.
When the NBA’s unofficial trade season began Dec. 15, the Bucks weren’t engaging with teams on possibly moving Antetokounmpo. They were, instead, scouring the market as buyers, looking once again for any potential upgrades to their roster, sources told ESPN.
Either way, a resolution to Antetokounmpo’s situation is expected in the coming weeks, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. If the Bucks keep losing, and Antetokounmpo wants out, league sources told ESPN, it will require a more forceful request.
“The question is who is going to get made uncomfortable,” a league source told ESPN. “There’s a difference between saying it out loud and innuendos. [The Bucks] know Giannis doesn’t want to be the villain.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo connects on alley-oopGiannis Antetokounmpo takes flight for alley-oop slam
Giannis Antetokounmpo takes flight for alley-oop slam
DOC RIVERS LET out an exasperated sigh. He knew the question was coming and was ready to pour cold water on the subject.
“Here we go again,” Rivers said during his news conference prior to the Dec. 3 game against the Pistons.
“I want to make it clear,” he continued. “Giannis has never asked to be traded. Ever. I can’t make that more clear.”
Even though Antetokounmpo has acknowledged his own wandering eye, which led him to consider the idea of joining the New York Knicks over the summer, he has never directly demanded a trade from Milwaukee.
Antetokounmpo has spent his entire 13-year career in Milwaukee and has signed a pair of maximum extensions without prior warning. But on those previous occasions, Bucks general manager Jon Horst had pulled off roster-changing transactions to entice Antetokounmpo to stay.
In 2020, he swung a deal to acquire Jrue Holiday from New Orleans. In 2023, he grabbed Damian Lillard as he was forcing his way out of Portland. The Bucks thought they could fortify their team again this summer by waiving an injured Lillard to create salary cap space to sign Myles Turner, but the impact of their new center has been limited — Turner is averaging 12.3 points, his lowest total since the 2019-20 season.
Bucks executives and coaches insist they like their roster, believing they built a team that can play to Antetokounmpo’s strengths as long as it stays healthy. However, even with Antetokounmpo playing this season, Milwaukee is just 10-8.
“We have time,” Rivers said before Saturday’s game. “We have a chance to make a run here, but it’s not going to happen overnight. And we need more than just Giannis coming back. We all have to play better, coach better, run better, rebound better.
“We have to do a lot of things better for us to turn the corner. … And obviously, having Giannis back helps a lot.”
The Bucks have only one first-round pick, in either 2031 or 2032, available to trade. The Bucks have not made that pick available in trade discussions for the past year, and team and league sources do not believe they would do so now unless it was for a significant star.
Antetokounmpo, who turned 31 this month, is still putting up some of the best numbers of his career: 28.9 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.8 assists, joining Nikola Jokic as the only players averaging 25-10-5. Antetokounmpo has a legitimate shot to average 30-10-5 for the fourth straight season — only Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson have done so twice in NBA history, according to ESPN Research.
The Bucks have Antetokounmpo signed to a guaranteed contract through the 2026-27 season with a player option for 2027-28, which will give him significant leverage in the future, especially if he indicates he does not intend to sign an extension this summer with Milwaukee.
If no deal emerges before the trade deadline, the Bucks’ tradable assets will increase significantly at the draft, when they could have as many as three first-round picks available, in 2026, 2031 and 2033. But not making a move in the meantime risks wasting another year of Antetokounmpo’s prime.
With the team treading water in a competitive but wide-open East, yet another question emerges: Can the Bucks persuade Antetokounmpo to hold tight until they are more capable of reloading the roster again?
“There’s a puncher’s chance they can bring in another piece,” a league source told ESPN. “And kick this thing down the road again.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flush
Giannis Antetokounmpo rocks the rim with powerful flush
They took the moment to savor the victory, staying overnight in Chicago before heading to Charlotte on Sunday. In the lead-up to the game against the Bulls, Bucks players acknowledged the energy around the team was palpable — and different.
“Confidence,” Rivers said. “When the team is making a run and you have [Antetokounmpo] on the floor, you feel like you’re going to get a bucket or get a good shot. When you don’t have him on the floor, you can go on those droughts. You don’t go on a long drought when Giannis is on the floor.”