Giannis Antetokounmpo Making Things Difficult for Trade Market by Spurning Blazers

Giannis Antetokounmpo wants to play with Jrue Holiday, who, of course, plays for the Portland Trail Blazers. The NBA's biggest trade rumor would simply be resolved if Antetokounmpo wanted to play on the same team Holiday is currently on.

Unfortunately, per The Stein Line's Marc Stein and Jake Fischer, "Holiday remains a Trail Blazer as we speak and, as The Stein Line first reported over the weekend, Portland has conveyed to Milwaukee that it would love to trade for Antetokounmpo directly if it could. Sources say, however, that Antetokounmpo’s camp has continued to signal no interest in a contract extension with the Blazers, which would dissuade them from surrendering good assets to trade for him and likely limits Portland’s realistic involvement in an eventual Antetokounmpo deal to third-team facilitator status."

This could all be solved by Antetokounmpo accepting a deal to go to the Rose City. Unfortunately, the Blazers are one of the least likely landing spots, even though there's a clear link that should make him want Portland.

Giannis Antetokounmpo Wasn't Happy When Bucks Waived Damian Lillard

Antetokounmpo famously balked when the Milwaukee Bucks stretched and waived Damian Lillard's contract to open up the cap space to sign Myles Turner away from the Indiana Pacers on a four-year, $109 million contract.

Per NBA On Prime Video's Chris Haynes last July, "Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo is not pleased with the team’s decision to waive Damian Lillard, league sources tell me."

Well, Lillard is now on the Blazers, making MLE money, as opposed to the max-contract money he was making in Milwaukee. If Antetokounmpo truly had a problem with the team getting rid of Lillard, Portland should be a natural landing spot.

That's not the case, though. Antetokounmpo seems to have balked more at the potential competitive results of the Lillard and Turner transactions, which, if that was the case, he has been proven right by how bad the Bucks have been this season under Doc Rivers.

At the end of the day, many of his preferred trade landing spots offer less long-term upside than the Trail Blazers. Deni Avdija has become a bona fide star, Shaedon Sharpe is a highly-effective backcourt mate, Donovan Clingan looks like a long-term building block, and Holiday is a proven entity playing next to the "Greek Freak." Portland is almost ideal from an on-court fit beyond the next two years.

NBA storylines dictate that the market isn't big enough, and recent history dictates that the Blazers aren't respected enough to be enticing to the top player on the trade market.