Inside Bucks' season from hell: Giannis trade talk, odd compliments and so much losing

Atlantic76ersCelticsKnicksNetsRaptorsCentralBucksBullsCavaliersPacersPistonsSoutheastHawksHeatHornetsMagicWizardsSouthwestGrizzliesMavericksPelicansRocketsSpursNorthwestJazzNuggetsThunderTimberwolvesTrail BlazersPacificClippersKingsLakersSunsWarriorsScores & ScheduleStandingsThe Bounce NewsletterNBA DraftPodcastsFantasyNBA OddsNBA PicksDifferent Look For Postseason BroadcastsDraft Lottery OddsHot Seat WatchInside NBA Sneaker CultureNBA Season The 2025-26 season was one that Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks would rather forget. Patrick McDermott / Getty Images Share full articleFrustration written all over his face, Giannis Antetokounmpo stewed on the bench. He had been back from injury for half a month, and his Milwaukee Bucks appeared to be possibly turning things around after a 12-19 start to their season, winning five of seven before back-to-back losses to the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves. But on this Jan. 15 night in San Antonio, following those letdowns against Western Conference contenders, Antetokounmpo fumed at the realization his team was clearly not in the same class as the Spurs. The Bucks trailed by 35 when he exited with 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the third quarter, en route to an 18-point loss that clinched the team’s worst record (17-24) at the halfway point of a season since 2016 — the last time Milwaukee missed the playoffs. Despite his irritation, Antetokounmpo composed himself for his postgame interview and spoke professionally about the team’s performance and Victor Wembanyama’s future. But the vibes in the locker room were decidedly not good. “Something’s gonna change,” one Bucks player told The Athletic in the locker room in San Antonio. “You lose two games in a row like that? And we want to be a playoff team? Yeah, something’s gonna change.” But that’s just it — nothing changed. In a Bucks season that looked doomed from the start, one that would see them finally field calls on the two-time league MVP Antetokounmpo amid endless chatter about his future, no big roster moves were made at the February trade deadline. Nobody was fired. Instead, amid injuries and consistently poor play on both ends of the floor, the Bucks drifted aimlessly toward the lottery. After the San Antonio wakeup call, a scheduling quirk gave the Bucks a golden opportunity to make a change and start working through a new look with two practice days in Atlanta. It didn’t matter. The Bucks, a team that clearly stated a desire to be a playoff team before the season, lost more than they wanted and piled up the type of losses that suggested they were far more likely to end up in the lottery than the playoffs. By the time the Bucks dropped that game to San Antonio, they had also already lost twice to the Washington Wizards with Antetokounmpo in the lineup, given up 135 points in a loss to the Sacramento Kings, and been beaten by the Brooklyn Nets by 45 points (a franchise record) in an Antetokounmpo-less effort. Even once the team opted to keep Antetokounmpo at the deadline, they couldn’t stanch the drama and bad vibes. The team’s last month was defined by a standoff between the star player and the franchise on his availability to play. After Antetokounmpo suffered a left knee hyperextension with 15 games remaining, the team chose to shut him down with the team’s playoff chances still alive. The decision infuriated the ever-competitive Antetokounmpo, who wanted to keep playing, and even further strained the relationship between the two parties when it meant the 10-time All-Star wouldn’t get a chance to play with his two brothers. Antetokounmpo insisted that he was healthy the entire time. The Bucks claimed the opposite, maintaining that their star was never medically cleared. The players’ association issued a statement, the NBA began looking into the matter and general manager Jon Horst, for his part, said that it had “nothing to do with tanking.” For 82 games, the Bucks never changed course and ended the season in the lottery. Immediately after that 82nd game, though, things started to change as news of Doc Rivers’ departure dropped shortly after the veteran head coach finished up his final media availability of the season Sunday night. But that move doesn’t change what the Bucks trudged through to get to the end of a season full of oddly-timed statements, alienation and broken trust. And now, Antetokounmpo’s future will be the talk of the NBA — again. Before thinking through what alterations might come as the offseason continues though, let’s put the 2025-26 season under the microscope and further examine a season that begged for change, but never got it … before spending the offseason trying to figure out whether the organization will actually make the biggest change by trading the best player in franchise history. The 2025-26 season ended, fittingly, with a 126-106 loss to the 76ers on Sunday in Philadelphia. The game was of little consequence for the Bucks, but it did serve as an apt reminder of one of the more eyebrow-raising moments of the season. The Bucks’ first visit to Philadelphia, on Jan. 23, was the team’s first game since Antetokounmpo suffered his second calf strain of the season against the Denver Nuggets. Despite initially straining his calf during the first half of that game, Antetokounmpo played through clear and obvious pain to try to help the Bucks pull off a comeback win. In doing so, Antetokounmpo made his injury even worse. Following the game, he told reporters that he heard a pop in his right knee in the game’s final moments and knew that he had strained his soleus, which would require a four-to-six week absence to get healthy. So, while the Bucks started a three-game Eastern Conference road trip in Philadelphia a week and a half before the trade deadline, Antetokounmpo remained in Milwaukee to begin the rehab process to try to get back on the floor as quickly as possible. During his pregame session in Philadelphia, head coach Doc Rivers told reporters that 76ers center Joel Embiid is “the most talented player” that he has ever coached. He shared that same sentiment with the NBC announcing team that was broadcasting that night’s nationally televised game. The comment immediately exploded on social media as NBA observers wondered why Rivers would make such a claim while he was currently coaching Antetokounmpo, an NBA champion who has accomplished more than Embiid. The incident in Philadelphia, however, was far from the only time Rivers decided to share an opinion that was unpopular with his players, and there were plenty of times where Rivers was far more direct with his opinions. One such example came when the Bucks made their way to Phoenix in the final month of the 2025-26 season. Following a morning shootaround in Phoenix on March 21, multiple league sources tell The Athletic that Rivers called a group of veteran players together for a meeting in Mortgage Matchup Center, while the rest of the team got shots up after shootaround out on the floor. Per multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, Rivers then went on to inform the veteran players that he believed they had failed him this season and questioned the group’s commitment, conditioning, focus and leadership. Rivers’ message incensed the group, and the players stood up for themselves, firing back at their head coach over his claims. “That’s when I checked out on this season,” one of the veteran players told The Athletic. In the 13 games after the post-shootaround meeting in Phoenix, Rivers played 13 different starting lineups as players throughout the roster moved on and off the injury report to close the season. Despite those issues and the team’s poor performance throughout the season, Horst stood by the job Rivers did in leading the team through this tumultuous season when pressed about the head coach’s performance in an interview with Milwaukee beat reporters last week. “It was an incredibly tough year and, in my opinion, Doc did his absolute best to keep the train on the rails as long as possible, and I think it was kind of masterful in a lot of ways,” Horst said last Tuesday. “Did he hit every single thing right? No. Did I? No. But it’s a really challenging year. He was unbelievable to work with throughout the year with it.” Following Sunday’s game, Rivers departed as the Bucks’ head coach with one year remaining on his contract. While the Bucks and Rivers are discussing a role within the organization moving forward, The Athletic reported that Rivers appears interested in taking a break. “I gotta go to grandparents day on the 21st (of April),” Rivers said before Sunday’s game, emphasizing his desire to spend more time with his grandchildren. “There’s another grandparents day on the 24th. I have something on my schedule right now that I need to do, and I’m looking forward to doing.” Potential issues with the organization’s decision-makers, however, were not limited to only Rivers. Multiple team sources detailed how they believed Horst’s behavior changed this season as well. When the Bucks were annually competing for the NBA’s best record, Horst was a fixture around the team, regularly attending shootarounds on the road and popping into the locker room to chat with players. His presence was noticeable, clear and consistent. Multiple team sources tell The Athletic that they felt as though Horst’s presence this season was more sporadic, with the Bucks general manager joining the team for fewer road games and keeping a greater distance from the team than he had in previous seasons. In the end, the Bucks compiled a 32-50 record. They missed the final Play-In spot in the Eastern Conference by 11 games and the final guaranteed playoff spot by 14 games. And, as Horst admitted when talking to Milwaukee’s beat writers last Tuesday, they never even looked the part of a playoff team for an extended period this season. “This is the first time in 10 years we’re going to miss the playoffs,” Horst said. “It’s not the first time in 10 years that we didn’t win a championship. But it’s the first time in 10 years that I think, realistically, by the time we got to the end of the regular season, we haven’t felt like we had a chance, right?” After a season of will-they-or-won’t-they, this offseason will set all NBA eyes upon Milwaukee once again. The Bucks seemingly flirted with the idea of dealing Antetokounmpo as the February trade deadline approached, and the star player told The Athletic at the time that “I want to be here, but I want to be here to win, not fighting for my life to make the playoffs.” But in the same conversation, he left open the door for the team to once again convince him to stay. “You’re saying that if they can convince me to stay within the team, and the next year that we can compete? Oh yeah, 1,000 percent,” Antetokounmpo said. “One million percent.” Later that week, the Bucks opted to keep Antetokounmpo, and he announced the news with an Instagram caption that read: “Legends don’t chase. They attract.” But the possibility of revisiting a trade conversation this summer still lingered. Bucks controlling owner Wes Edens has not spoken to local reporters since taking questions the day before the 2025-26 season tipped. His only public comments on the team since media day came in an interview with ESPN in which he laid out the team’s decision-making process with Antetokounmpo in simple terms. “Giannis is going into the last year (of his contract). So one of two things will happen: Either he will be extended, or he’ll be traded,” Edens said. “The likelihood you’ll let him just kind of play out the last year, we can’t afford that. It’s not consistent with what’s good for the organization. That’s not a Giannis issue. That’s any player that’s in their last year.” While that statement seems to set up a binary that must be followed and seemingly places the decision at the feet of Antetokounmpo, make no mistake, the Bucks will be the ones deciding whether the best player in franchise history will be signing an extension in Milwaukee. Antetokounmpo is not eligible to sign an extension until Oct. 1. The Bucks will not be able to sit on their hands and wait until that moment to make decisions about their future. They cannot afford to wait, like they did when they engaged the New York Knicks on a possible trade for Antetokounmpo in August before the 2025-26 season. Instead, they will need to choose a path and pursue it relentlessly. That started with Rivers’ decision to depart as head coach of the Bucks on Sunday night. With Rivers out after two and a half seasons, the Bucks will need to find a new coach to lead them moving forward and put together a tactical plan to get the franchise back into the postseason. From a roster perspective, Horst’s work will begin in earnest as soon as the offseason begins as the Bucks will need to go through the NBA Draft and free agency and build a team. And those decisions should make Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee much more clear. Throughout his career, Antetokounmpo has asked the Bucks to prove that they are serious about winning and contending for championships before agreeing to his next supermax extension. And each time, in the months leading up to when that decision has needed to be made, Horst has risen to the occasion and delivered a trade that puts the Bucks back in the contention conversation in the Eastern Conference. Horst will have that opportunity again this summer. In free agency, the Bucks likely won’t end up with much cap space, but they should have the full nontaxpayer midlevel exception (roughly $15 million) and the bi-annual exception (roughly $5.5 million) to use on signing outside free agents. And the Bucks will have to use all of their resources if they want to put the roster back in a position to contend at a high level. “Jon talked to you guys the other day, and one of the things he said is we gotta improve the roster,” Rivers told reporters before Friday’s game against the Brooklyn Nets. “We gotta do different things, and clearly, we have to do that. “I think we’re 26th in spending, and that’s including (Damian Lillard’s) $20 million, so we’re probably like 28th in spending. And not because our owners won’t do it. They will do it. It was just the situation we were in this year, so there’s a lot of growth, a lot of moves, a lot of things we all have to do.” Milwaukee has the rights to a lottery pick in the loaded 2026 NBA Draft, and once they get to draft night, the Bucks will have the ability to trade their 2031 and 2033 first-round picks. If the organization decides it wants to continue to pursue championships with Antetokounmpo, Horst will have three tradeable first-round picks to use to begin setting a path toward that this offseason. But that will require choosing a clear direction. In short, if the Bucks want to push their chips all in again to convince Antetokounmpo to sign that extension on Oct. 1, they will have the necessary assets at their disposal this summer. And if they want to trade Antetokounmpo, there will be a long list of suitors that will likely grow as teams come up short of their respective goals in the postseason. Now, they just have to decide what exactly it is they want to do. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Eric Nehm is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Milwaukee Bucks. Previously, he covered the Bucks at ESPN Milwaukee and wrote the book "100 Things Bucks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die." Nehm was named NSMA's 2022 Wisconsin Sports Writer of the Year. Follow Eric on Twitter @eric_nehm