It hasn't always been pretty for the Milwaukee Bucks, who lost three close battles to start their season before finally taking care of business against their rival Indiana Pacers for their first win. At the very least, this is a fun and exciting up-and-coming team that's building toward a brighter future and an even brighter culture. The same cannot be said of the Miami Heat, who, despite stellar performances from Giannis Antetokounmpo, fell to 0-4 in what's been an abysmal start to their season.
Although the specifics are still muddied, for all intents and purposes, Giannis requested a trade to the Miami Heat this offseason after two years of noise, speculation, and the Greek Freak himself vehemently denying all rumors. Unless something specific comes out, the 'He said, she said' of it all is irrelevant now that we've arrived at this point, but it's fair to wonder how Giannis is feeling about it now.
Let's not get it twisted — the big man himself is playing some great ball, averaging 28.5 points on 55.7% from the field to go with 9.5 rebounds, five assists, and a steal per game. But from a team perspective, the Bucks have actually been better on both sides of the floor, ranking 20th in both offense and defense, compared with Miami's 27th and 24th, respectively.
It's too early in the season to speak definitively, but if Giannis knew the Bucks could wind up with a better all-around team than Miami after it was all said and done, would he have made the same call?
Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Miami Heat will inevitably play better than this, but maybe leaving the Milwaukee Bucks wasn't the best idea.
It's very rare that a team can trade for a superstar player of Giannis Antetokounmpo's caliber without decimating their roster and draft assets in the process. We're talking about a Top 25 player of all time, still at the tail end of his prime, and that's only Giannis' floor as a legend. If he were to win another title, he'd probably start knocking at the door of the Top 10 to 15 all-time.
But his patience in Milwaukee ran out, and so did their pathway to rebuilding around the heliocentric style of play Giannis commands. That's something Erik Spoelstra, one of the greatest head coaches of the century, is working through with his team right now. Not every player is a good fit for Giannis-ball, and adapting to that style of play has brought about a harsh learning curve for his running mate, Bam Adebayo, who's down to about 12 points per game on 40% shooting through four games.
It's no surprise that Bobby Portis, who already knows how to play off Giannis, is having a solid start to the year, because he doesn't need to change his game very much to fit with this team. Everyone else in Miami is having that problem, however, and their best role players from years past are now crushing it with the Milwaukee Bucks.
Let's call a spade a spade — Giannis let the outside noise get to him, and he took the path that he felt the league was pushing him toward anyway. There's plenty of time to see how this Miami Heat experiment plays out, as it's too early to call. But there's no way that Giannis doesn't have conflicting feelings seeing a young, free, competitive Bucks squad hooping their hearts out while his Heat are stumbling out of the gates this season.
He's learning the hard way that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and that's okay.
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