ESPN's Shams Charania dropped a bombshell by revealing that Giannis Antetokounmpo told the Bucks that the only team he would want to play for outside of the Bucks was the Knicks. While the news sent the basketball world into a frenzy, Charania also revealed that a deal wasn't close to happening. That news shouldn't surprise fans, as it would have been incredibly complicated for the Knicks to put together any package compelling enough to pry the former MVP away from Milwaukee.
Charania revealed in his piece that the Bucks did not think the Knicks made a strong enough offer to continue trade conversations, while the Knicks believed that the Bucks were never serious about listening to an offer. Ultimately, it appears that a deal was never close to being finalized.
Landing Antetokounmpo was never likely
Antetokounmpo has been one of the three best players in the NBA for years. He is the former MVP, a Finals MVP, a Defensive Player of the Year, a nine-time All-NBA winner, and the face of the Bucks' franchise. If Milwaukee were to part with him, it would be a systemic shift and likely the start of a massive rebuild.
For that to happen, it would take a king's ransom of first-round picks. The Bucks likely had a conversation out of respect for Giannis. That said, the singular first-round pick and trio pick swaps that the Knicks possess should have resulted in Jon Horst laughing Leon Rose off the phone.
The two ways a trade could have happened
The first scenario that could have made a trade more likely would have been if Antetokounmpo officially requested a trade publicly and named New York as the only team he would extend with. That would have given New York enough of the leverage where they could have more reasonably thrown a package together.
The other, less likely, scenario would have been if the Knicks involved multiple other teams or made separate trades to acquire assets. For example, flipping OG Anunoby to acquire multiple firsts and then packaging those picks with Karl-Anthony Towns to land Antetokounmpo. Again, this feels like a stretch.
Even if the Knicks did have an inkling that Giannis was available, would they have wanted to gut their roster to acquire him in a championship or bust season with a new head coach? Possibly, maybe even probably. Still, it would have been incredibly complicated to pull it off and would have involved multiple moving parts.