The Bucks sent Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to the Miami Heat this summer, and the return is now official enough to judge. Milwaukee got back Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kasparas Jakucionis, plus a 2026 first-round pick, unprotected Heat first-rounders in 2031 and 2033, a 2030 first-round swap and a 2033 second.
Read that list again and notice what is missing. There is no first-round pick arriving before 2030 that Milwaukee did not already use in June. Everything of consequence lands in the next decade.
That is the tell. This package was built to pay off around the time most of the current roster is somewhere else, which does very little for a team that needs to be watchable now.
The Package Is Thinner Than the Headline
Two unprotected firsts from a Miami team that just acquired a two-time MVP is a real asset. In 2031 and 2033, Giannis will be in his late thirties or retired, and Miami’s books could be a mess. Those picks could end up being very good.
They could also be picks 22 and 25. That is the bet Milwaukee made.
The player side is where it gets uncomfortable. Herro is the best of them, a legitimate shot creator and the primary scoring option on this team by default, but he has one year left on his deal at roughly $31 million. He is more likely to be a trade chip at the deadline than a foundation piece.
Ware is the one worth getting excited about. He averaged 11.1 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.9 combined steals-plus-blocks in 22.1 minutes across 77 games last season for Miami, with 34 starts. Give him 30 minutes a night and a green light and there is a starting center in there.
Jaquez is a rotation player. Jakucionis is a lottery ticket. Neither changes the direction of a franchise.
Milwaukee Paid for Waiting
The honest read on this trade is that the Bucks did not get fleeced in July. They got fleeced in 2020 and 2023, and this was the bill arriving.
Milwaukee shipped out multiple first-rounders to land Jrue Holiday and then emptied what was left for Damian Lillard. Those moves bought a championship in 2021, which nobody in Wisconsin regrets. But it left the Bucks with no first-round picks in 2027 or 2029 even after trading the best player in franchise history.
A team that starts a rebuild without its own picks in consecutive years is mostly just waiting around for the calendar to turn.
Had Milwaukee moved Giannis a year earlier, before the leverage evaporated and before every rival knew a deal was coming, the return looks different. More teams stay in the bidding. Boston does not get squeezed out. The picks come sooner.
So Did They Get Enough?
No. The Heat package was defensible given the circumstances, and I would not call it insulting. But a two-time MVP in his prime should return franchise-altering value, and this return alters nothing until 2031.
The Bucks hired Taylor Jenkins to build a culture, drafted Brayden Burries and stocked the roster with young Heat pieces. That is a reasonable front office doing reasonable things with a bad hand.
Expectations should be low this season, and that is fine. The real evaluation of this trade happens when those 2031 and 2033 picks convey, which is a brutal thing to tell a fan base that was watching an MVP two summers ago.
Milwaukee is going to be bad for a while. The organization knows it. The only question left is whether Herro gets flipped for something useful before his contract runs out, because that is the last real asset on the board.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
