Milwaukee Bucks They are 1-4 and look more like a Cooper Flagg contender than a title contender throughout the first week and change of the NBA season. Doc Rivers has had a losing record since taking the Bucks job, and this roster is basically immune to improvement. There are very few tradable assets and even less flexibility to trade them. The Bucks are stuck in the second apron with a high tax bill, a severe lack of promising young talent, and an aging roster that doesn’t have the necessary ingredients to continue winning around Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.

It helps that Giannis and Dame don’t give off the greatest vibe in the world.

The Bucks are in big trouble. Generally speaking, it wouldn’t be wise to panic after five games, but all the problems that plagued Milwaukee last season are showing up this season as well. The ‘document is new’ excuse is no longer valid. He had a full offseason to set up the playbook and put the pieces together. It’s hard to field a bad team when you have Giannis and Dame on your roster, but the Bucks are doing their best.

Giannis made no effort to avoid trade rumors. If the Bucks can’t turn this ship around, it’s only a matter of time before the two-time MVP gets impatient. Milwaukee should be much better than this, but for all the excitement about the Dame partnership when this trade goes down, these hypothetical landing spots could pair Giannis with a much better No. 2 pick.

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The concept of having Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zion Williamson in the same frontcourt is difficult to understand. The sheer athleticism between the two will be challenging for most defenses to contain. No suitable startup hub currently available New Orleans Pelicans Herb Jones certainly wouldn’t object to placing Giannis in that role, relying on the defensive line behind Dejounte Murray and NOLA’s perimeter scouts.

Obviously, the Pelicans will need to unload a deep supporting cast and reservoir of draft picks to make this happen. Giannis won’t come cheap, especially with a few years left on his contract. The Pelicans aren’t exactly a top target either, which could complicate talks. Giannis certainly has thoughts about where he’ll end up.

However, the prospect of Giannis and Zion pairing up is exciting because it would create the most unique and completely dominant frontcourt pairing in modern history. Forget spacing, the Pelicans would always have two free tickets to the front of the rim. Defenses will likely pack the paint and throw both cutting giant walls, but Zion has had success in suboptimal spaced situations before. Giannis getting hit is nothing worse than what Daniel Theis is providing these days.

The Pelicans would have no trouble breaking down the defense and creating open shots on the perimeter. This trade will likely encourage the Pelicans to look for more 3-point bombers (Jordan Hawkins would have a field day), but even acquiring Giannis is a great first step in the building. Let’s start there.

Houston Rockets are loaded with assets, both personnel and draft wise, so there aren’t many teams with better trade packages. Be skeptical of Houston taking both Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard out of this trade, but I’m just skeptical of Sheppard revolving around DHOs from Giannis or Thompson coming straight to the basket and dumping Giannis I imagine movements for two people. closed.

However, his real “sidekick”, at least initially, will be Alperen Şengün. Many will argue about calling Sengun “better” than Damian Lillard, but we need to start thinking long term. Lillard’s best years are clearly behind him. Giannis still has a few left in his tank. Şengün, who is only 22 years old, has an All-Star advantage in a role that many teams envy.

Nikola Jokic has truly changed the way we think about the center position. I’m not here to fuel these reckless comparisons, but Şengün’s playmaking ability is a rare gift in the fifth row. There could be many interesting, creative ways to combine the passing and inside scoring capabilities of Sengun and Giannis.

A perfect defense marriage, by the way. Şengün struggles to protect the rim at a high level due to his limited size and lack of vertical pop. Giannis gets a lot of ground on the weak side and could address one of Houston’s key weaknesses by providing Sengun with some protection.

The Rockets are deep enough to trade Giannis and keep a good supporting cast intact. This team will come to great places.

It is obvious Oklahoma City Thunder We are the best team in the Western Conference. It’s impossible to predict the future in such a loaded conference, but a healthy OKC team should rise to the challenge and face Boston (or one of the underdogs in the East) in the NBA Finals. This is possible without trading Giannis.

There is no single team better positioned to thread the needle between now and the future than OKC. Sam Presti still has plenty of future first-round draft picks in store. The Thunder can overwhelm the Bucks with picks and not even touch the young talent. OKC has a chance to pair Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams. And If it comes to trade talks between the two teams, I will ask Giannis.

Giannis may prefer a flashier market, but if he is truly determined to win, this should be his desired landing spot. OKC isn’t necessarily the sexiest town, but as Kevin Garnett so eloquently put it on his podcast, this team is full of 11-man dudes.

The Thunder are deep, young and full of star power. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is already an MVP candidate and is arguably even more prominent in the NBA hierarchy than Giannis. Imagine Antetokounmpo as the No. 2 pick. Moreover, Chet Holmgren is rapidly climbing this ladder on his own. OKC would have the league’s most dynamic and suffocating defensive frontcourt between Chet and Giannis, with Shai creating endless upside as the offensive snake. This takes the pressure off Giannis and hopefully keeps him in good stead for a long title run.

This is what most people want to see. We’ve never had Stephen Curry and LeBron James on the same team, but Steph and Giannis could be just as fun. Golden State Warriors They patiently accumulated draft picks along with several young prospects such as Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, Brandin Podziemski, Trayce Jackson-Davis, and others who could help the Bucks team move towards a rebuild.

Can Golden State win the bidding war with OKC, Houston or New Orleans? Absolutely not, but that’s where Giannis’ own desires come into play. The eight-time All-Star won’t push a trade without some influence over his eventual landing spot. The Bucks have the right to ignore Giannis and do what’s best for the team, but oftentimes the NBA’s true superstars can pull the strings behind the scenes.

Golden State is a top-notch market and an established winner. Giannis adds an element to Steve Kerr’s offense that we haven’t seen before, being able to apply relentless pressure to the rim and ultimately create easy shots or ball movement. Giannis and Steph’s two-man moves would break down the defense and provide what Milwaukee fans expected from Giannis and Dame. He’s not getting any younger, but Steph seems to be aging more gracefully than Lillard. His off-the-ball dynamism and shooting versatility are also completely different. Dame is the best shooter of all time, but he’s no match for Steph, especially when it comes to playing from another mainstay on offense.

The Warriors are far from the field this season. The fact that Kerr has real depth and scoring power alongside Steph changes the perception of Golden State considerably. The team isn’t built to compete for a championship in its current form, but with the addition of Giannis, the Warriors are sure to move up a few notches in the West.