Jamal CollierJan 16, 2026, 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.
play0:21Doc Rivers: ‘I have to do a better job with this group’Doc Rivers “I have to do a better job with this group.”
play1:11Wemby, Spurs blow out Giannis and the BucksVictor Wembanyama records a 22-point double-double as the Spurs blow out the Bucks.
Giannis boos Bucks fans back after and-1 basket (0:24)Giannis Antetokounmpo finishes a tough layup at the rim and then gives the crowd a thumbs-down. (0:24)
Doc Rivers: ‘I have to do a better job with this group’Doc Rivers “I have to do a better job with this group.”
Wemby, Spurs blow out Giannis and the BucksVictor Wembanyama records a 22-point double-double as the Spurs blow out the Bucks.
When Giannis Antetokounmpo returned to the visitor’s locker room at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Jan. 9, he beamed at what he saw waiting for him: a signed purple No. 23 LeBron James jersey.
“Oh yeah,” said Kevin Porter Jr., stopping in the middle of his postgame interview. “That’s a nice one.”
He turned to his longtime teammate Bobby Portis. “The best part,” he told him, “Look in my brother’s locker.” Inside Thanasis Antetokounmpo’s locker was a signed purple No. 9 jersey from Bronny James, matching the one Giannis got from the younger James last year.
“We cannot be comfortable. We can’t be complacent right now,” Antetokounmpo said after the game. “We got to keep on pushing, pushing [the] envelope, put our foot on the pedal and keep on moving forward. We haven’t done anything, right? So, this is the time before the break, in January, that you got to stock up wins.”
The Bucks had followed up a motivational win at Los Angeles with losses in back-to-back games, including an embarrassing 33-point defeat to a Minnesota Timberwolves team without Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert on Tuesday night.
By the time Antetokounmpo walked into the locker room after a postgame lift and a visit with the team’s athletic trainers, only Portis and rarely used reserve Andre Jackson Jr. remained.
“Maybe my voice is just a broken record and guys are tired [of hearing it],” he said. “Guys might tend to do what they want to do. I don’t know, but as a leader, it doesn’t matter. Being a leader is like the same thing as being a dad.
Since Antetokounmpo returned from injury Dec. 27, the Bucks are 5-5, in the midst of a three-game losing streak and stuck in 11th place in the East at 17-24.
“This is not what we planned on,” Rivers told ESPN. “But teams go through stuff. We had injuries. Denver’s going through injuries right now. Oklahoma’s went 6-6 in the last 12 games. It’s a long season. Everybody overreacts outside the team. Nobody inside overreacts.”
Still, despite Rivers’ protestation, the external noise has continued to grow around the league, with teams wondering how far the Bucks have to fall before they reach a breaking point. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported in December that if the Bucks continue to slide, discussions between Antetokounmpo’s representation and the franchise could escalate.
The Bucks have held firm on their stance that Antetokounmpo will not be made available before the deadline, and team sources told ESPN they are scouring the market for an impact player to pair with their superstar.
But the stakes are rising with each game they fail to make any upward movement in the standings. Milwaukee is facing one of the most critical transaction periods in franchise history, with a chance to either salvage a disappointing season or pivot into an entirely new era.
With three weeks to go before the trade deadline, Giannis’ future remains in flux. Here are four possible ways this deadline could go for the Bucks and their star.
Doc Rivers: ‘I have to do a better job with this group’
Doc Rivers “I have to do a better job with this group.”
With Antetokounmpo in the lineup, the Bucks are 14-13, a .518 winning percentage that would bump them up to eighth in the East.
“Well yeah, Giannis is back,” Rivers said. “We’re starting to run our stuff better. Guys are understanding their roles better.”
But the two have played well together. Going into Thursday’s game at San Antonio, in 273 minutes with both on the floor this season, the team has a net rating of plus-20, the seventh-best rating of any two-man combo in the league with at least 250 minutes played.
Overall, the Bucks still soar with Antetokounmpo on the court. Going into Thursday, they were scoring 125.9 points per 100 possessions with Antetokounmpo on the floor, which would be the best offensive rating in the league. Defensively, they are giving up 116.4 points per 100 possessions with the former Defensive Player of the Year, virtually the same as their 116.2 mark this season that ranks 20th in the league.
It lends credence to the vision Bucks general manager Jon Horst laid out during a meeting over the summer in Greece with Antetokounmpo and his representatives. The architect of the 2021 NBA championship expressed confidence in the roster he built, surrounding the nine-time All-Star with shooting, space and a more switchable, versatile defense.
“We’re more in our position for the team to be the most successful,” guard Ryan Rollins said last week. “The more we play in those [roles] and in those situations, those lineups, the better we are … just playing around Giannis and situations like that.”
Bucks executives watched closely as Atlanta shipped Trae Young to Washington last week in a deal that did not include any pick swaps.
One of Milwaukee’s biggest assets this trade season is its financial flexibility; the Bucks are not in the tax for the first time since the 2019-20 season and not hard capped at either apron, putting them in position to acquire a player with multiple years remaining on his contract.
It’s where rival executives see the biggest chance for opportunity in Milwaukee. The Bucks can accept a larger contract with multiple years beyond this season that an opposing team might be trying to get out from under, such as Miami’s Andrew Wiggins, who owns a $30 million player option for next season, or Charlotte’s Miles Bridges, who will make $22.8 million in the 2026-27 season, team and league sources told ESPN.
ESPN also reported last month some of the players the Bucks have discussed who could fit this direction, including Sacramento’s Zach LaVine and Malik Monk as well as Portland’s Jerami Grant.
Milwaukee is looking to address its biggest issue all season: It is a disaster whenever Antetokounmpo is not on the court. Sunday is a prime example, as the Bucks lost 108-104 in Denver to a frisky Nuggets team missing its superstar, Nikola Jokic.
Milwaukee outscored Denver by 16 points in the 33 minutes with Antetokounmpo on the floor. The Bucks were outscored by 20 in the 15 minutes with their superstar on the bench.
“Why should we always be playing from behind? Why?” Antetokounmpo asked as he assessed the team’s struggles when he sat. “And when we have a lead, why do we always have to give it up? We got to be able to be mature, get the right shot, don’t be comfortable with any lead that we get and understand how we got to play.”
They are 3-11 without Antetokounmpo in the lineup this season. Their offensive efficiency drops to 107.6 without their star player, which would be the worst mark in the NBA. Their defense gets only slightly worse, giving up 118.7 points per 100 possessions, but that would be one of the five-worst marks in the league.
Several team sources have emphasized to ESPN that the Bucks have been aggressive on the trade market, trying to find a potential upgrade to their roster now and avoid wasting a year of Antetokounmpo’s prime.
However, the Bucks have limited resources available to pull off even the smallest move. They have 11 players making between $2.2 million and $5.1 million and their three largest tradeable contracts — Myles Turner ($25.3 million, but in the first year of a four-year contract), Bobby Portis ($13.5 million with a player option in 2028) and Kyle Kuzma ($21.8 million next season) — are key members of an already thin rotation.
His star player rejected the excuse and pointed out what he saw as the gap between the Bucks and the teams near the top of the standings.
“Playing hard. Playing the right way. Playing selfless basketball, which we don’t,” Antetokounmpo said. “Those three things are important. I know they’re important for you to win, but right now, there’s so many things that we can do better.
“But let’s just start by … can we just play harder? Can we just play the right way? Can we create [an] advantage for the next player? Can we just play for our teammates, play for the team, play for ourselves? Let’s start with that. And I think everything else will follow.”
Following Milwaukee’s championship in 2021, Horst has been unafraid of making significant shake-ups over the past few seasons while trying to get the most out of the team around Antetokounmpo.
The Bucks fired Mike Budenholzer after losing in the first round in the 2023 playoffs. Horst acquired Damian Lillard days before training camp in the 2023-24 season but waived him in July, months after he suffered a torn Achilles. It allowed the Bucks to sign Turner this summer. And perhaps his most bold move came in January 2024, when despite a 30-13 record, a Bucks team with championship aspirations fired coach Adrian Griffin.
They turned to Rivers, a coach with a championship, who was known for his experience managing stars. However, the Rivers era in Milwaukee has been a massive disappointment. In three seasons heading into Thursday, the team is 82-76 (.519 winning percentage) with a pair of first-round exits. And the Bucks don’t have many realistic avenues to dramatically alter their roster to pair Antetokounmpo with another star player.
