The list of teams checking in on Giannis Antetokounmpo keeps growing, but the newest name is the one that makes rival front offices pause for a different reason. According to Marc Stein’s The Stein Line reporting, the Portland Trail Blazers have informed the Milwaukee Bucks that they’d like to acquire Antetokounmpo, while also acknowledging internally that convincing him to sign an extension and commit long-term to the Pacific Northwest would be “an extreme longshot.”
That’s the key tension: interest versus realism. Plenty of teams would love to trade for a two-time MVP. The meaningful ones are the teams that can trade for him and reasonably believe they can keep him. Portland’s self-awareness matters because, in the modern NBA, the “one-year rental” on a megastar is a gamble that only works if the acquiring team is already close, or if the price is surprisingly soft. Neither is a clean fit here, especially with the Bucks only recently reported to be “listening” to aggressive offers rather than actively shopping their franchise cornerstone.
Still, the Blazers’ involvement doesn’t have to mean they expect to win the auction outright. Several outlets have emphasized that Portland’s real leverage could come from its asset position and its ability to act as a facilitator in a multi-team construction, the kind of deal where Milwaukee prioritizes maximum draft control and optionality, while a third team helps route players and picks to make the math work. The closer the league gets to the Feb. 5 trade deadline, the more these “longshot” calls can function as something else entirely: a way to get into the room early, to understand Milwaukee’s ask, and to position yourself for the secondary value that blockbuster negotiations often spill into.
In other words, Portland’s message to Milwaukee can be true on both levels at once: yes, the Blazers are interested, and yes, they understand how hard it would be to make Antetokounmpo a long-term Blazer. That combination doesn’t disqualify them. It simply defines their lane in the biggest sweepstakes of the season.
