NBA insider Jake Fischer predicts that the Milwaukee Bucks will ultimately trade Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat.
I suppose if the Heat are looking for any sort of optimism, they should look to this prediction from the respected NBA insider. In his words, he believes that the Bucks will listen to offers for Giannis over the next week and decide to hold off on a trade until the offseason. At that point, the Bucks could trade him to the Heat when they have more draft capital to include in an offer.
Honestly, it's not that of an terrible idea. And not even just from a Heat perspective.
Theoretically speaking, if the Bucks believe that they could scrape more out of suitors during the offseason, there's very little reason to make a deal now. Sure, there are other risks involved, including Giannis' health and perhaps their desire to start a complete rebuild now if that's where things are headed, but it wouldn't be that shocking if the Bucks held off on a deal for a few months.
The Bucks may be better hold waiting to trade Giannis
The Bucks have made it this far. What is another few months? And if they were especially concerned about tanking for the remainder of the season, they could always shut Giannis down for the rest of the year.
Whether he'd be open to that or not remains to be seen, but it's certainly one nuclear option that they could present to Giannis if they can't find a workable trade at the deadline.
From the Heat's perspective, unless they are able to hammer out some other smaller-scale deals, they could only include two first-round picks (and pick swaps) in an offer for Giannis right now. If these two teams have seriously discussed a deal for Giannis, and you'd imagine they have, there's no question that the Bucks have asked the Heat to find a pathway to adding more draft capital to their offer.
That's likely the vision here with this prediction from Fischer. It's not that the Heat can't find a way to acquire more draft capital; it's the fact that it complicates negotiating a deal right now. And with just a week before the deadline, the margin for error is quite slim.
During the offseason, the Heat would have more flexibility and, perhaps most importantly, up to four first-round draft picks that they could offer in a deal for Giannis (without making any other moves).
Is there a path to the Heat acquiring Giannis before the February 5 trade deadline? Absolutely. However, for multiple reasons, a trade of Giannis may be much more feasible during the offseason.