Miami Heat Rumors: Should we take this Giannis Antetokounmpo report seriously?

The Miami Heat have been linked to Giannis Antetokounmpo for at least a year or so now. Should we take this latest round of spicy rumors seriously?

The Miami Heat are in win-now mode. As Pat Riley told Jimmy Butler after they handled the Milwaukee Bucks in the playoffs, he was “making him dream”.

In case you couldn’t read the tea leaves there, that was likely in reference to showing the Milwaukee Bucks and their star player that they were fallible. Here is a thought from Dan Le Batard that illustrates that point.

Here is what Le Batard said on a recent appearance with Rich Eisen on his radio show. If you go to around the 10-minute mark, that’s where the meat of it all starts.

"When they got Jimmy Butler, the plan was to get somebody better than Jimmy Butler to be the top end of this team,” Le Batard said of the Heat. “Everything that happened in the playoffs, even though it ended with them finishing second place, they needed all of that to happen to shake Milwaukee’s core in what they’re doing and to show Giannis, ‘Well we can take you out, imagine what we can do with you here."

That was the whole point of it all. They showed him that they can beat him with his current team and that without him, he won’t be able to beat them anyway, so he may as well come on down.