Giannis Antetokounmpo is worth trading for at literally any point. If the Golden State Warriors can pull off that miracle, they should. He's a franchise-changing talent, one of a handful of players in the league who make a team competitive whenever he's on the court (his league-best plus-16.3 on/off demonstrates that point). But there are zero players in the NBA who could lift this Bucks roster to greatness, and it may lead to his eventual departure from the franchise.
Marc Stein wrote recently on The Stein Line that, "Said one league source particularly well-versed in Bucks matters: "This is shaping up to be a draft-day kind of thing.""
Let's say the Warriors do land Giannis in a summer stunner. That's exciting! It would also mean the team enters 2026-27 with a 38 year-old and 32 year-old leading the charge and no backup plan to speak of. Granted, it's about as good a 38 year-old and 32 year-old duo as you could possibly form in NBA history, but still.
The Golden State Warriors don't have a plan post-Steph. That's fine, because Steph has been such a good plan on his own for well over a decade, but trading for Giannis this summer would not be done with the future in mind. That's a win-now move — and it would have to be now now, because once Steph is gone, Steve Kerr is probably gone too, and then all of a sudden the Warriors wouldn't look too different from how the Bucks look now. And looking like the Bucks do now is the last thing any fan wants.
Trading for Giannis in the offseason would be dangerous for Warriors
How valuable is one more title for this era of Warriors basketball? If you believe that it's all-important, and that whatever comes after that is irrelevant, than trading for Giannis is almost a must. He is the only feasibly available superstar who could lift these Warriors to one more title run. And it probably would be one more run. It feels like we've said that the past few years, but hoping a 39 year-old Steph and 37 year-old Draymond can still be the second-and-third most important players on an NBA title team (in an NBA where the Thunder keep getting better) is probably not realistic.
If you're looking past the current era of Warriors basketball, though, and thinking of, say, 2030, then a Giannis trade (which would cook the Warriors' already slim cache of assets) feels much riskier. Is this team willing to go all, all, all in for one more realistic shot at glory?