Warriors star Steph Curry dribbles past Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks at Chase Center in San Francisco on March 6, 2024.
ESPN’s insider-iest NBA insider, Shams Charania, sent shock waves through the league on Monday with a report that nine-time All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo is — for the first time in his career — open to playing somewhere other than Milwaukee.
“For the first time in his career, Antetokounmpo is open-minded about exploring whether his best long-term fit is remaining in Milwaukee or playing elsewhere,” Charania wrote.
This, of course, sent the NBA’s TV media machine into overdrive, with an unending number of pundits telling you which teams they “wouldn’t discount.” Bleacher Report’s content farm already has an entire grove worth of “Giannis Trade Ideas,” and even well-trusted NBA journalists like the Ringer’s Howard Beck are dropping incredibly confusing statements like this on the “Zach Lowe Show” last week: “The initial thing I got from one person was just like, you know, some rumblings that it’s already just the big cities.” Beck then said one Los Angeles team and one New York team are in the mix, plus Miami, which he acknowledges is not a “big market” but a “glamour market,” meaning it’s not really “just the big cities” at all. And for good measure, he added: “I can’t remember if Houston came up, it should.” Who is this “one person”? Why should Houston come up, if only because they were discussing Houston on the podcast? Which LA and which NY teams are the ones in the mix? We never really find out.
All of this is to say, there has been very little actual reporting on really any team Antetokounmpo is or isn’t considering, which makes sense because — oh, right — we’re in the middle of the NBA playoffs, and the Bucks star has an entire summer to decide if he wants to demand a trade. And if he does (big “if”), the Bucks will have more decisions to make about trading him to his intended destination, followed by even more decisions regarding whether they can even make that trade work and not set their franchise back a decade just to appease the Greek Freak. So for now, it’s all rumblings and hedging and “Giannis Trade Ideas.”
At least, it was until this week.
In a roundtable discussion published on the Athletic Tuesday morning, senior NBA writer Sam Amick shared some actual, real-life reporting about an All-Star Weekend event that saw Antetokounmpo cross paths with Dubs star Steph Curry.
“Antetokounmpo, who has been known to be a dream target of the Warriors for a long time, made a late-night appearance at Curry’s party in San Francisco during All-Star weekend. Warriors officials on hand took (gleeful) notice — including fellow attendee, Golden State owner Joe Lacob. Draymond Green and Kevon Looney were part of the get-together as well,” Amick said.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Stephen Curry attend an after-party hosted by Curry at Club Thirty during All-Star Weekend in San Francisco on Feb. 16, 2025.
Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Gentleman\’s Cut
The event in question was an exclusive Gentleman’s Cut bourbon tasting party (Curry co-owns Gentlemen’s Cut with a Napa Valley winemaker) hosted after the NBA All-Star game in San Francisco on Feb. 16. The event took place at the Splash bar in Chase Center’s Thrive City and didn’t go totally unnoticed by Warriors fan accounts, which found a Getty image taken at the event of Antetokounmpo and Curry.
But according to Amick’s report on Tuesday — which also notes the pair are both represented by the same Octagon agency — this wasn’t a party filled with NBA stars. Actually, quite the opposite: “It was a Warriors-centric event with one notable, and very large, exception.” That exception was Antetokounmpo.
Further internet digging turned up this whiskey industry blog account of the event, which noted that Portland Trail Blazers rookie Scoot Henderson was also there (Curry has some sort of business/mentoring relationship with Henderson), but not a single other current NBA player who isn’t a Golden State Warrior was mentioned.
A deep dive into Getty Images revealed at least a couple retired basketball players in attendance: Curry’s former teammate JaVale McGee and his friend Brandon Jennings; former Warriors broadcaster Ros Gold-Onwude; a handful of non-basketball stars (Bay Area rap legends Too Short and Mistah F.A.B. along with comedian Nick Kroll); and plenty of women’s basketball stars (members of the Golden State Valkyries, plus Sabrina Ionescu, who has a well-documented mentor relationship with Curry). Antetokounmpo’s wife and daughters were also there.
And while the internet immediately started to read deeply into Amick’s report, there is one last photo of Antetokounmpo on Getty of value that doesn’t appear in Amick’s report.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bucks co-owner Michael D. Fascitelli attend Warriors star Stephen Curry’s All-Star weekend party in San Francisco on Feb. 16, 2025.
Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Gentleman\’s Cut
That’s Antetokounmpo with Bucks co-owner Michael D. Fascitelli, which raises a whole bunch of new questions. Did Fascitelli ask Antetokounmpo to come to look cool in front of Lacob? Did Antetokounmpo just run awkardly into him there? Do Antetokounmpo and Fascitelli both just really like bourbon?
Even the most concrete reporting to date doesn’t feel all that concrete.