"Sources Tell Me There's Still Nothing Set In Stone" - Shams Continues To Triple Down On The Idea Of Giannis Potentially Leaving Milwaukee

John Fisher. Getty Images.

For at least another 3ish weeks until the 2025 EuroBasket kicks off, we're knee deep in the depths of the slow period of the NBA offseason. Once you get to that post-Summer League/pre-training camp window of mid-July through the month of August, it's a dead zone. All the major trades have happened, all the major free agency signings have happened, and outside of a few RFA's still looking to resolve their situations, it's pretty quiet.

Now that the offseason is mostly over, I do have to say for all the hype and promises we were given that this was going to be the craziest summer of all time, in reality, it was more of a "meh". There were some big moves sure, but as a whole, it most certainly did not live up to the propaganda that was being shoved down our throats heading into the summer. Windy telling us it was going to be chaos. Shams telling us we literally couldn't go to sleep only for nothing to happen. The Draft being promised as the true start of the chaos, only for jack shit to actually happen, it's been a rough summer for people like Shams.

So what do we do in the dead period of the NBA calendar to drum up interest and eyeballs on ESPN? Keep doubling and tripling down on the future of Giannis and the Bucks. Duh.

This shit again? Still? I'm certainly not a Bucks fan nor do I really care about Giannis staying in MIL, but holy shit enough already. I'm not sure why Shams continues to try and die on this hill, but he's been at this for months now. While the "Giannis may leave MIL" is nothing new in terms of the ESPN playbook, Shams seems hellbent on continuing to make this a thing.

You have to go back to February 2025 when a story came out about how Giannis would never request a trade out of MIL. This was coming on the heels of the Luka trade and all that bullshit, but it made it pretty clear of what his intentions were when it came to his basketball home

So what happened the very next day? Shams went on national TV and pretty much said the exact opposite. That Giannis' future as a Bucks is very much in question, especially if they don't have a sustained level of winning

Call me crazy, but that sounds pretty different from what the player himself had to say about the situation! A few months later, Shams was back, doubling down on this idea that Giannis was entertaining the idea of leaving

The fact that Shams refused to let this go was getting kind of weird at this point, which led us to a pretty obvious subtweet from Giannis

Now that free agency has wrapped up and the Bucks have done what they could do to go "all in" this season and we never did get that Giannis trade demand, one would then think that he was OK with their moves and felt like it was enough. Whether he's right or not is another story (probably isn't), but something tells me if Giannis was going to demand a trade, we'd have seen it by now. It's not like the Bucks roster is going to magically change between now and the start of the year right? 

Well, do we think Shams cares about that? Of course not. Because now that it's the dead period of the NBA calendar, it's time to play the hits. Normally, I'd be putting stock into Shams being so stubborn about this and continuing to "report" it, but I can't move past all the bullshit from this whole offseason. He's weirdly become more of a content creator than an NBA reporter. He's no dummy. He knows this is going to generate clicks and eyeballs and all that stuff. He keeps saying the same shit while actually not even saying anything of substance. I mean, that sounds exactly like what he said in February, then May, and now August. As a reminder, Giannis is under contract for another 2+1

so it's not like he's an expiring or anything like that. He's signed for the next 2 years at a minimum. Considering we just saw the Knicks give Mikal Bridges his $150M extension, I tend to believe Giannis isn't about to ask out considering the Knicks were a potential suitor, and they would need the Bridges money to make it work. Now that he's out, I dunno, this just feels like more Shams bullshit than anything else. Like when he told SVP not to go to sleep the night of Free Agency opening, only for nothing to go down.

In the end, this is a fascinating showdown. Who's full of shit? Is it Giannis for declaring he'd never demand a trade, or is it Shams for continuing to double and triple down on this idea that Giannis is entertaining a new basketball home? At some point, the time will come to pull the trigger, and if he never asks out, I'm not sure what Shams does. Probably just comes up with some bullshit like "Giannis decided their roster was enough" or something along those lines to cover his ass. In the meantime, he's able to float this narrative out for the billionth time during this offseason dead period.

I can only imagine how annoying this is for Bucks fans, and while even though I wish them nothing but the worst, I do side with them when it comes to the Shams/Giannis bullshit. Either report the actual trade demand or just shut the fuck up already.