{"id":411061,"date":"2025-11-28T17:45:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/411061\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T17:45:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:45:22","slug":"stephen-a-smith-says-the-knicks-blew-a-chance-to-get-giannis-because-they-overpaid-for-mikal-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/411061\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith says the Knicks blew a chance to get Giannis because they overpaid for Mikal Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the start of the 2025-26 NBA season, Shams Charania revealed<\/a> that the New York Knicks<\/a> and Milwaukee Bucks discussed a Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> trade during a two-week window.<\/p>\n

According to Shams, nothing was finalized, but certainly, the Knicks had their shot and just could not capitalize.<\/p>\n

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Looking back, Shams’ ESPN colleague, Stephen A. Smith<\/a>, says the only reason why Giannis isn’t wearing a Knicks uniform today is that New York overpaid to acquire Mikal Bridges in the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n

“They traded five first-round picks for him,”said<\/a> Smith. “If they had paid three first-round picks and they had kept two of them for themselves, they’d have had Giannis. They had nothing to give them. You got those players, but you had no draft assets. That’s what Milwaukee got to get.”<\/p>\n

The Knicks were two first-round picks away from getting Giannis<\/p>\n

It can be recalled that two summers ago, the Knicks surrendered unprotected first-round picks in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031, plus an unprotected pick swap in 2028 to the Brooklyn Nets to reunite Bridges with Villanova teammates Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and back then, Donte DiVincenzo.<\/p>\n

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And while the “Villanova Knicks” were an instant hit in the Big Apple, many believed that they gave up too much to acquire a solid player who has never been an All-Star. Smith thinks that if New York had given only three first-round picks to Brooklyn and retained the other two, those would have sealed the deal in getting the Greek Freak last summer.<\/p>\n

“If you lose Giannis, it can’t be just a couple of players. It’s got to be pack draft picks. You don’t have draft capital. So now the only way you can get him is if he forces his way out of Milwaukee and he’s not willing to do that yet because he feels he owes the organization and the city,” added Smith.<\/p>\n

Related: “Same Brother. New Chapter” – Jalen Rose and Chris Webber end decades-long feud with TNT reunion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Locked in with the Bucks this season<\/p>\n

In his first interview with the press after Charania’s story about the trade talks, Antetokounmpo professed his loyalty to the Bucks and said that he is locked in on leading the team this season. However, he also gave no assurance<\/a> about what will happen in the future.<\/p>\n

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“I believe in this team. I believe in my teammates. I’m here to lead this team wherever we can go. It’s definitely going to be hard. We’re going to take it day by day, but I’m here. So all the extra stuff does not matter. I’ve communicated with my teammates, communicated with the people I respect and love, that the moment I step on this court or in this facility, I wear this jersey, the rest does not matter. I’m locked into whatever I have in front of me. Now, if in six, seven months I change my mind, I think that’s human,”said<\/a> Giannis.<\/p>\n

Based on that, it doesn’t seem that Giannis is going anywhere, at least as far as the current season is concerned. That also means that the Knicks will have to end their championship drought with the lineup that they have right now, which isn’t bad at all. But just imagine if SAS is correct and they added Giannis last summer.<\/p>\n

The vibes would be very different.<\/p>\n

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Related: “Jason would stand on a chair at practice to see what Giannis saw” – Marques Johnson credits Jason Kidd for molding Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Nov 28, 2025, where it first appeared in the Latest News<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the start of the 2025-26 NBA season, Shams Charania revealed that the New York Knicks and Milwaukee…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":411062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3124,27846,3368,24114,69359,7195,3130,1260,3122,7193,62,2233,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-411061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-brooklyn-nets","9":"tag-donte-divincenzo","10":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","11":"tag-jalen-brunson","12":"tag-josh-hart","13":"tag-mikal-bridges","14":"tag-milwaukee-bucks","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-new-york-knicks","17":"tag-shams-charania","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-stephen-a-smith","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115628574536307090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}