A Hidden Path Giannis Trade - MIL/NOP/76ers

[DrModesty]

So this is probably insane and I suspect people are going to have wildly differing perspectives on value all over the place given the players involved. It also relies on the lottery playing out in certain ways (No Cooper and Philly keeping their pick), but bear with me.

Philadelphia OUT:

Joel Embiid - 4/247m (Includes 2028/29 player option for 70m)
2028 Clippers 1st (Unprotected)
2030 Philadelphia 1st (Protected top 4/top 4/2nds)

Philadelphia IN:

Zion Williamson - 3/125m (Partially Guaranteed)
Pat Connaughton - 1/9m (assumes accepted player option)

Why?

I believe Zion is about the highest level of talent that Embiid could realistically be traded for. Zion definitely has risks, but I think that his risks are lesser than Embiids, particularly given age. Zion is talented enough that paired with Maxey and a good bounce back year from PG13 the 76er's would at least be a wildcard threat in the eastern conference next year. Additionally Zion is young enough that he can be a part of a promising long term future core with Maxey, McCain and a top pick in this upcoming lottery. Embiid is a supreme talent, but most here view the Embiid contract as heavily negative given the number, longevity and age/health/history of the player. So while Zion himself is a risky bet, I do think that Philadelphia would need to include significant value seeing as his contract is half the size, shorter and Zion is also very talented.

New Orleans OUT:

Zion Williamson - 3/125m (Partially Guaranteed)
Dejounte Murray - 3/95m (Includes 2027/28 player option of 31m)
2025 NOP 1st (Assuming it doesn't end up the Cooper Flagg pick)
2026 Milwaukee swap right rescinded
2026 Indiana 1st (protected Top 4, top 4, 2x2nds)
2027 Milwaukee or New Orleans 1st (Best of, Unprotected) *Note* Less favorable of the two currently owed to Atlanta protected 1-4
2029 NOP 1st (Unprotected)

New Orleans IN:

Giannis Antetokounmpo - 3/175m (Includes 2027/28 player option of 63m)
Kyle Kuzma - 2/43m

Why?

Obviously the upside is that they get Giannis. The roster is not particularly well balanced and there is a lack of a clear cut number 2. But there are upsides too. Giannis, Murphy and Herb Jones is a very scary 2 way wing line up. Olynyk is a legitimate shooting big. McCollum has the capacity to be a high impact player. They would be under the tax which is important in that market. They would also be in a flexible position going forward. Only Giannis and Murphy are under long term contracts. They would have sizable expiring contracts both this year and next along with a bit of pick capital remaining. New Orleans is moving off of Zion who is a great talent, but hasn't fulfilled his potential here. They also importantly get off of Dejounte who is expected to be out for the duration of next season. His is a negative long term contract that clogs up the books and makes it much harder to contend next year with Giannis.

If the Pels win the lottery I think it would either be unlikely for them to trade for Giannis, or the deal would change so transformationally that this construct is irrelevant.

Milwaukee OUT:

Giannis Antetokounmpo - 3/175m (Includes 2027/28 player option of 63m)
Kyle Kuzma - 2/43m
Pat Connaughton - 1/9m (assumes accepted player option)

Milwaukee IN:

Joel Embiid - 4/247m (Includes 2028/29 player option for 70m)
Dejounte Murray - 3/95m (Includes 2027/28 player option of 31m)
2025 NOP 1st (Assuming it doesn't end up the Cooper Flagg pick)
2026 Milwaukee swap right rescinded
2026 Indiana 1st (protected Top 4, top 4, 2x2nds)
2027 *Best of* Milwaukee or New Orleans 1st (Unprotected) *Note* Less favorable of the two currently owed to Atlanta protected 1-4
2028 Clippers 1st (Unprotected)
2029 NOP 1st (Unprotected)
2030 Philadelphia 1st (Protected top 4/top 4/2nds)

Why?

On the face of it this appears to be a ridiculous path to take, but I think that this return for Giannis is both very talent rich while also giving great pick capital. The idea behind this is that you take on a huge amount of negative contract money to maximize pick equity and future control with the added bonus that there is a small chance of the talent attached to those contracts paying enormous dividends.

Dame and Dejounte are going to be out next season with injury. I also think that the Bucks would be able to justify sitting Embiid all of next season given his knee injury issues and the apparent chronic nature of it. The return of the 2026 pick swap and having the entire core of the team injured all year allows for an extremely aggressive tank for what is being talked about as a draft with multiple franchise changing prospects. Then, in 2026/27 if Dame comes back at a fringe all star level, and if Embiid can be a top 10 player and if Dejounte can be a solid starter once more there is a theoretical one year window to contend. All 3 players would have had 18-21 months removed from the game with an entire regular season to ramp up in to playing shape. Remember there would also be 2 high lottery picks on the team alongside those 3 vets, plus whichever ancillary pieces are on the team. A year of tanking potentially will uncover new rotation players, and some of the rotation guys on the team (Portis, Gary Trent, AJ Green, AJJ, KPJ) could conceivably still be around.

If it turns out that those 3 core guys are damaged goods, then you can do another aggressive tank because you are due the best of Bucks/Pels pick in the 2027 draft. At that point Dame would be coming off the books, Dejounte would be down to an expiring player option and Embiid would only have a 1+1 remaining. There is also a possible middle ground in that season where the team is middle of the pack, but Embiid rejuvenates some value with the much shorter contract and a (Relatively) healthy season.

If the 2026/27 is a success (e.g a conference finals run) maybe you run it back with Dame on a smaller deal. If not, then Milwaukee would already have 2 high lottery picks from reputedly good drafts on the roster (NOP 2025, MIL 2026). They would also presumably have the player from the Indiana 2026 1st. The books could be very clean with Dames deal finished, Dejounte expiring, and Embiid down to 2 years. The Bucks would be in position to take on contracts for assets or proactively build around their young guys (if they pop big time).

The overall Milwaukee 1st round pick situation after this deal would be as follows:

2025 - NOP (already assuredly no worse than 7th)
2026 - MIL (Should be extremely high value with an aggressive tank), IND (top 4 protected)
2027 - MIL/NOP best of (Unprotected)
2028 - LAC (Unprotected), A very complicated worst of the worst pick swap
2029 - NOP (Unprotected)
2030 - PHI (top 4 protected), Lesser of PORT/MIL swap
2031 - normalcy returns

I am sure there would be random 2nds in any deal and possibly small salaries or low level prospects. If push came to shove the Bucks might be able to get more picks or some swaps added as well.

[the_process]

Understandable, reasonable... but no interest from Philly in trading Embiid and the 28 Clips 1st for Zion.

[Mavrelous]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

[the_process]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

[jayjaysee]

I think it’s an actually pretty interesting spin. Sets Milwaukee up to go on maybe 1-2 nice runs and hopefully the youth they draft develop nicely in that environment..

Zion/Maxey with McCain and the 2025 lottery pick is a nice young core, though I don’t know if I’d want to trade a 2030 pick if I were Philly.. But I do think the value is right given where Joel currently is.

Makes me want to go back to exploring Joel+ for AD trades for Dallas though. Like the idea of tanking a season and coming out of it with Joel/Kyrie and whatever youth.

[jbk1234]

Understandable, reasonable... but no interest from Philly in trading Embiid and the 28 Clips 1st for Zion.

I don't believe anyone is offering a positive value package for Embiid until he's taken the court again, he can't even pass a physical right now, but turning one down would be really foolish. This is close.

[Mavrelous]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

[Godaddycurse]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

Jazz and NOP both have a high lotto pick this year to include, which OKC and Houston (prolly) won't have

[Mavrelous]

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

Jazz and NOP both have a high lotto pick this year to include, which OKC and Houston (prolly) won't have

Yeah, but the roster isn't that good w/o the pick to entice Giannis

[the_process]

Understandable, reasonable... but no interest from Philly in trading Embiid and the 28 Clips 1st for Zion.

I don't believe anyone is offering a positive value package for Embiid until he's taken the court again, he can't even pass a physical right now, but turning one down would be really foolish. This is close.

Zion for Embiid could be argued positive value. Adding two firsts (and eating Connaughton) is definitely dumping him.

Again, I get it; but not willing to do that now and Morey definitely isn't considering that anytime soon.

[Texas Chuck]

More than 2 teams can definitely trade for Giannis, but where he wants to go is going to be the primary driving force.

[the_process]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

If you look at OKC's picks, almost all of them aren't very good, either.

We need to see what teams Giannis will accept a trade to.

[Mavrelous]

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

If you look at OKC's picks, almost all of them aren't very good, either.

We need to see what teams Giannis will accept a trade to.

OKC has talent on roster, Hartenstein + JDub + picks would be valuable, OKC can alternatively also use the pick volume to buy the swaps MIL has, and still provide enough volume for the trade.

[the_process]

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

If you look at OKC's picks, almost all of them aren't very good, either.

We need to see what teams Giannis will accept a trade to.

OKC has talent on roster, Hartenstein + JDub + picks would be valuable, OKC can alternatively also use the pick volume to buy the swaps MIL has, and still provide enough volume for the trade.

Sure. But Giannis could say he's not interested in OKC and then all that doesn't matter.

[Mavrelous]

Sure. But Giannis could say he's not interested in OKC and then all that doesn't matter.

Sure, but I think the opposite will happen, if OKC don't win this year, Giannis would want to go there because that's the best situation for him to try to win more, no one gives him this option.
SGA/Giannis/Chet + lots of 3&D players.

[tester551]

I think Bucks would prefer Zion...
I don't think Pelicans have the ammo for Giannis trade, only 2 teams do, Thunder and Rockets.

Agreed.

Zion is a better return than Embiid right now.
But Pels don't have the ammo to compete.

[JayMKE]

I’ll give it to you for creativity and say I like this deal better than most of the garbage being posted but Embiid is not a guy I want to invest in long term and neither is Zion.

[PELsu]

There is no need to include Philly here and overly complicate things. They don’t want to trade Embiid and I don’t think we want to trade Murray.

I think the Pels would start with Zion, the Bucks 26 swap, and the 27 best of pick as a base, aka….we don’t care if Giannis wants to come we will do anyway……offer. The Indy pick is probably an easy throw in, but I highly doubt we would also deal this years top five pick (or whatever it is). We would obviously be taking a risk and would need enough additional on the roster. Likely a Giannis addition would mean us trying to make a subsequent deal to keep him around.

And I know there are dreams of 15 firsts etc, but Zion and the Bucks next two drafts is going to be difficult to beat for anyone. There are no greater players nor picks coming back IMO. Biased as it is. We shall see.

[bbms]

Pelicans and Jazz do too IMO.

But the question is: where does Giannis want to play? He'll almost certainly have a list rather than an ultimatum.

Jazz picks are low quality, and they don't have enough talent on roster.
NOP can give the Bucks 3 years control, but other than that, they have nothing to offer and their roster isn't great.

If you look at OKC's picks, almost all of them aren't very good, either.

We need to see what teams Giannis will accept a trade to.

until milwaukee pick debt is settled i don't see much value in picks for giannis. if i were them, i'd look for half a team in return + picks. keep competitive, develop and trade, draft develop and trade. repeat. when they get themselves back at the draft, they can explore options such as a blow up, a power move... pretty much the okc way.

except okc wasn't in a situation nearly as tragic as mil in 2019 in terms of future assets.

[facothomas22]

Giannis and the 76ers easily pass on this trade. Giannis knows the Pelicans are not going to be a contender by adding him on the team and the 76ers are not in position to give up assets right now, especially for Zion Williamson who has been injury prone and a disappointment compared to his expectations.