Sources: Bucks seeking trade offers for Giannis Antetokounmpo - ESPN
The Milwaukee Bucks are open for business on trade calls and offers for two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo entering the NBA draft combine and over six weeks away from the draft, league and team sources told ESPN.
There is expected to be a robust market for Antetokounmpo's services, and ownership and front office officials expect to maintain their trade deadline asking price of a young blue-chip talent and/or a surplus of draft picks, sources said.
The Bucks engaged in Antetokounmpo trade talks before the February deadline as the franchise cornerstone expressed his belief that the time had come to part ways. They now will again after co-owner Jimmy Haslam stated a resolution is coming before the draft June 23 and 24. Nothing has changed in Antetokounmpo's stance that the time has come for both sides to move on, sources said.
«Sometime over the next six or seven weeks we'll decide whether Giannis is going to sign a max contract and stay with us or he's going to play somewhere else,» Haslam told reporters Wednesday during a news conference introducing Taylor Jenkins as the Bucks' new coach. «And [general manager] Jon [Horst] and Taylor, along with [co-owner] Wes [Edens] and myself, will make that call, and we understand the gravity of that call.»
Haslam has said publicly and privately that the Bucks will work with Antetokounmpo in the coming weeks on an outcome that is best for both sides.
«One of two things will happen: Either he will be extended, or he'll be traded,» Edens told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne in March.
The NBA draft combine starts Monday in Chicago.
The Bucks' trade saga with Antetokounmpo began a year ago. Last May, Antetokounmpo expressed an openness to finding his best fit outside of Milwaukee. Conversations


