The Bucks Are Finished but Giannis Wants to Play

All right, um, I wanna ask you about this Giannis situation, which with 4 games left in the Milwaukee Bucks season is still, is becoming a major problem for the Bucks as we head towards the offseason.

Giannis Detokopo, um, has been agitating to get back into the Bucks line.

The Bucks, of course, are eliminated from playing contention.

Uh, they're out.

It's, it's a wrap for Milwaukee.

They are 10 games back of the 10 seed, Miami Heat.

There's no reason for Giannis to be in these games.

He has been injured multiple times already during the season with those calf injuries, which are very dangerous, but he has been telling everyone, including reporters in Milwaukee, that he wants to play and the Bucks are not letting him play.

This is a grown man's game and, and it should be handled that way by everybody.

Um, and so I don't like, um, When it's, it's, it's, as he said, she said stuff, it's, it's not good and so, um, just from that seat, uh, the fact that I have to sit up here and keep addressing it, it bothers me, um, and.

We need to do something about it.

What do you make of all this, of Giannis pushing so hard to get back into the Bucks lineup?

He told me I had a half-hour one on one conversation with him when he was here in LA.

We're just sitting in the locker room because obviously he was not getting ready to play, and we chatted at length, and I would say this is the most disconnected I have ever seen Giannis from, you know, the Bucks as a franchise.

I think that.

Our long story here, as you and I have been talking for 2 years now about Giannis and the Bucks and what was going to happen here.

It's hard to see it ending any other way than them trading him this summer.

It will be interesting to see because there does seem to be now this contentiousness, whether it is over, frankly.

I think the interview and Ramona did a fantastic job writing that story and and getting the interview with the with the ownership there and sort of laying out all of the particulars of why the ownership structure there is so weird and the comments about Giannis.

So it was amazing reporting, but the reporting ended up with some even more bad feelings on the Giannis side of things because it felt like, why are you going and telling all of this in public when you won't even talk to me about it necessarily and what kind of ultimatums are you laying down?

When we haven't had as many of these direct conversations or certainly, I mean, they've had conversations and certainly with with Alex Sarasas, uh, Giannis's agent, but not in the direct way that has led to a decision and the fact that that was sort of being talked about publicly, I think was upsetting.

So there's a bunch of things, whether it's the playing, not playing, it's, you know, the the NBAPA got involved in the statement about why aren't you letting him play?

You're sitting making Kate Cunningham can't win.

You know, can't, it can't ban an all NBA team because he doesn't make 65 games and yet you're not letting Giannis play, which by the way, is ridiculous, um, on the Cade side.

Uh, I, I just, I, I think we are seeing the end of everything in front of our eyes, and this is a part of it.

And I am very curious now leverage wise, now that it seems like there is enough bad blood kind of all the way around that this trade will happen.

Sometimes when that happens, that kind of enables ownership to say, look, I don't, you know, we used to be like, hey, we got to trade you somewhere nice because we got to send you off in the right way.

And now we don't have to anymore because this has been so contentious.

But I don't know if that matters because Giannis only has a year left.

guaranteed on his deal and he kind of still has say over where he goes because what team is going to give up the farm for a guy who's going to leave in a year.

I think Usai Mujiri is the one guy to put his cards down on the table like that.

It worked, but I don't, I don't see it working again.

I gotta channel my inner Brian Windhorst here.

What with the fingers?

Are you gonna look up and do the fingers, OK.

Why would Giannis wanna play?

Cause this doesn't make any sense to me.

There's 4 games left in the season, even if you want to go back a week or 267 games left in the season.

The Bucks are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Why does Giannis want to play so bad?

I'm missing something.

There's a piece of this puzzle that's missing.

It doesn't make sense for him to be going to war over getting back in the Bucks lineup over the final couple of weeks of the season.

This is not a player who has been healthy throughout this year.

This is a player who has had multiple injuries, the kind of injuries that can be recurring, the kind of injuries that can get worse.

Objectively, you look at the situation.

If you're Milwaukee, if you're Giannis, and you probably should be saying, you know what, good idea.

Let's sit out.

Giannis, from, if I'm Giannis, for my health, I want to stay on the sidelines and away from potential injury.

For the Bucks, obviously, you feel the same way.

You don't mind losing games at this point, but maybe most importantly, Giannis, if he pops that calf or he has an Achilles injury, is untradeable.

And the biggest opportunity for your team to rebuild.

This summer goes away.

I don't get it.

There's something we're missing here.

There's a piece to this puzzle that we're missing.

Giannis should not want to play.

I, I, I get that he loves the fans in Milwaukee.

He wants to be there for him.

He wants to be there for his team, but his team has nothing to play for.

Him showing up for one or two more home games for Milwaukee is not going to move the needle for this team or them one way or the other.

We're missing something here, Rachel.

There's a piece of this puzzle that is missing.

That maybe at some point is going to reveal itself, but I, I'm convinced we're missing something.

So you absolutely could be right, and we don't know what we don't know or I don't know what we don't know and we could find out, oh, there's a specific reason and here it is.

If there isn't , the only thing I would offer on the other side is I think there is still a PR battle being waged here.

I don't even think it's a fake PR battle.

I actually believe that what we've seen from Giannis, this sort of, I want to stay, but also I want to win, and also this where it seems like he's flip-flopping is just his actual brain working in real time in front of everybody.

I think that he's actually extremely conflicted, and I think one of the things that is actually upsetting to him is that he could.

Leave Milwaukee with people thinking he gave up on this team in the city.

I don't think he wants that.

I think he probably understands it is time to play somewhere else, but does not want to walk away feeling like anybody thinks he gave up on the people that he actually holds pretty dear as fans in Milwaukee.

And I think that.

Maybe there's something more sinister.

Maybe there's something behind this, and you could be completely right.

I am not so Pollyanna to think like, oh, it's just because he loves Milwaukee people fans so much.

I don't think it's sinister, but, but I, I don't think it's anything.

I just think I think something missing here, but I think that it is possible.

That this is part of what we a pattern that we have seen now from him for over a year, which is, I don't want it to look like I gave up on the team and on the people and on the city.

And here I am, if I am going to walk out the door this summer, if this is the last thing I ever do here, demonstrating that I want to play and actually doing it, having that moment on the court, being able to wave to the fans at the end, doing all the stuff.

I do understand that could be important to him.

I'm not saying there isn't something else going on, but I'm also saying it's possible there isn't.

I get that it's that important both two things could be true.

I, I get that it's important to him to show the fans in Milwaukee that he's loyal, that he wants to play, and if this was February, I'd probably buy into all that.

But we're sitting here in early April, even if you want to go back to late March, right when the Bucks were eliminated.

There's no reason for him to be out there.

He should be the one saying, I should probably shut it down.

He's the one with the calf issues, not just this year, last year too, multiple years of calf issues, the kind of things that terrify teams.

One, imagine if in a meaningless game.

He winds up getting a significant injury.

What that means for him, what that means, I'm just saying this is all, this is very weird.

There's something very weird about all this, and it's gone nuclear like.

I, I love that Giannis talks to the local media out there.

I love these stories that I'm reading from, from Eric Nimm and from Jim, Jim out there.

Like I, I love.

All of that.

But I feel like we're missing this.

This is one big piece of the puzzle that's missing of why he continues to want to play, uh, when there's no reason for him or the Bucks to have him out there.