The Miami Heat are fresh off their NBA Finals appearance, but the new season must start. In it, Jalen Rose thinks Giannis will choose Miami if Bucks don’t win.
The Miami Heat are barely home from the NBA Bubble, where they were defeated in the NBA Finals across a tough six games by the Los Angeles Lakers, but the business of basketball must continue.
With things like the draft, impending free agents, and potential new player acquisitions of their own to look forward to, there is no time to rest on their laurels. While that may be the immediate need or necessity as far as the current business at hand for next season, there are those still looking towards the season following next.
Well, as we all know and have been tracking, the rumor mill seems to think that Giannis Antetokounmpo is simply biding his time in Milwaukee until he can then jump ship for the sunny coasts and blue water of Miami.
While it has been long an unkept secret amongst the many of us who chat it up and talk the sport, someone with a larger platform and more expanded voice spoke on the topic recently. Feel about him as you may, that person was Jalen Rose.
The Miami Heat beat the Milwaukee Bucks in this past playoffs. Jalen Rose thinks that Giannis will leave if and when it happens again.
In Monday’s episode of his show on ESPN, Jalen & Jacoby, that he does along with his co-host, David Jacoby, Rose opened up about what he thinks is the future of the Greek Freak. Here is the raw footage, with the segment in question starting at around the 9:13 mark.
In case you missed something, here is the meat of what Jalen Rose had to say. It is the most necessary part of his whole monologue for our purposes.
"Having the best record in the NBA and having the reigning back to back MVP and not making it to the finals, I saw this happen before, the player’s name was LeBron James.And you know what he ended up doing? He left Cleveland for Miami.And Rosetredamus believes… If the Milwaukee Bucks do not achieve their goals, like making it to the Finals next year, the hourglass is now flipped on Giannis’s time being in Milwaukee, and that exit could now end up placing him IN… Miami, the team that beat the Milwaukee Bucks this year."
We can’t say that we disagree with Jalen at all. While we want this as fans, it totally jives well with everything we know about the situation, Giannis himself, and more so than anything, Pat Riley.
Riles knows what he has already and he knows what he could have in Giannis. If he can add that to this team, which he can because he can sway even the most convicted man, then this Miami Heat team would be darn near unstoppable.
Literally. Quite literally.
So, when thinking about what to make of this, take it as gospel. Because he’s right, if they don’t do something special next season, he’s gone.
Heck, he may leave either way. If the Miami Heat have anything to do with it though, you’ll never find out, meaning they’ll get beat whenever they run into the team from Biscayne… again.