New-look Bucks seek to win another title in ‘third window’ of the Giannis Antetokounmpo era
Giannis Antetokounmpo addresses trade report, reaffirms commitment to Bucks
Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo addressed a trade report after practice on Oct. 8, during which he reaffirmed his commitment to team.
- The Milwaukee Bucks are entering their third “championship window” built around superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
- General manager Jon Horst has remade the roster to be younger, more athletic, and less expensive than in recent seasons.
- The team waived Damian Lillard and stretched his $112 million contract, the largest in NBA history, to create roster flexibility.
With the 2025-26 NBA season set to tip-off on Oct. 22 for the Milwaukee Bucks, they are by some measures, navigating uncharted waters as they seek to maximize the team’s potential around superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Of the five other champions crowned between 2019-24, only the Denver Nuggets have a superstar making the maximum 35% of the salary cap who is still at the top of the game in three-time MVP Nikola Jokić.
Previous champions the Toronto Raptors (2019), the Los Angeles Lakers (2020), Golden State Warriors (2022) and Boston Celtics (2024) are in various stages of rebooting.
Denver began shedding salaries after their title in 2023 and won 107 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs in the last two seasons. The Bucks stuck with the “Big Three” model after their title and won 109 games from 2021-23 with Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. With Damian Lillard, they won 97 games from 2023-25. Milwaukee advanced to the second round just once.
General manager Jon Horst, whose contract was extended in April, was empowered to reverse that trend and re-establish the Bucks as legitimate contenders in a rapidly changing roster-building landscape.
The decision to waive Lillard and stretch his $112 million contract over five years, the largest stretched contract in NBA history, sacrificed nearly 15% of Milwaukee’s cap space but completed a roster pivot around Antetokounmpo that began with the trade of Middleton last February.
The Bucks have been remade from an aging, expensive, star-beholden group to one whose core players are its most youthful since 2018-19. It is also the least expensive roster the team has fielded since 2019-20. But it doesn’t mean they feel like they don’t have a chance to get back to a conference final or NBA final.
It’s the opposite.
“If you have it, you go for it – period,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. “If you don’t have it, you build so in two or three years you go for it. I think this is a team that has it and has a chance at it. You go for it. Period.”
With Antetokounmpo, that has been the mindset of Bucks ownership and Horst for nearly a decade. Since 2018-19, no team has won more regular-season games, and the Bucks are one of seven teams to win a title.
“I think we’re in our third window right now,” Horst told the Journal Sentinel. “And we’ve said this on the record a number of times, it’s always been the goal to sustain success over a long period of time and have multiple chances at winning.”
Horst then broke down what those windows have been, in his view:
Window 1: “We had an era of a team that was the most-winning team for a couple years in a row that was Eric Bledsoe and Giannis and Khris and a bunch of guys and that team was really, really good and I think could’ve won a championship and should’ve went to the NBA Finals but just fell short (in 2019).
Window 2: “Window 2 was really, really good. We had some struggles, we had success and we won a championship (in 2021). That window, age, decisions, whatever, we had to open up a third window.”
Window 3: “With Dame (being acquired in 2023), we were trying to open up a third window, circumstances happened, right, wrong decisions, whatever the case may be, I believe that we’re in that third window and we’re still trying to navigate that.”
Horst then added that he feels this window will be open not just for this season but the next, as they are the two seasons where Antetokounmpo is under team control (the two-time MVP has a player option for the 2027-28 season).
“So to say in that third window, there’s a two-year stretch because I can’t control what Giannis does or doesn’t do, what he does or doesn’t want to do beyond what his contract is,” Horst acknowledged. “So, I’m very confident that for two years we have the best player in the world, we have an incredible supporting cast, we’re modernizing and improving our style of play, we’ve added to our depth, we’ve gotten younger, more athletic, faster that I think will help him be better and help us be better and I think that gives us a chance to maximize those two years.”
To illustrate that, of the top nine rotation players (as of Oct. 16) only two – Myles Turner and AJ Green – has a contract that runs longer than Antetokounmpo’s two team-controlled seasons. Bobby Portis Jr. and Ryan Rollins also have player options for the 2027-28 season.
“That’s not to say that it’s two years and we’re out,” Horst emphasized. “We’ve operated in different segments in these windows and in this third window I think we have two years left.
“At the end of that, if we’re not a tax team the next two years, that opens up opportunities that we haven’t had in the past. Most of our contracts will mature, so we’ll have room and opportunity for significant cap space. We’ll have a restocked pile of assets. And we’ll still have a 32-year-old superstar who’s the best player in the world in our franchise and we can go look at and see what Window No. 4 looks like. Or not. I don’t get to control that part.
“I just get to do everything that we can up until that point to maximize where we’re in, and if we have an opportunity that presents itself to open up its next window then it’ll be two-plus years. If not, it’ll be two.”
