The Athletic's Sam Amick doubts Giannis is leaving the Milwaukee Bucks

You may recall that there was a bit of an uproar online a few weeks ago over an article by Sam Amick of The Athletic. What essentially happened was: He told a joke Giannis had made, the usual aggregators/villains on Twitter singled him out, and then he went viral as another entry in the wishcasting saga involving other NBA fans and franchises continue to hold firm on Giannis' future in Milwaukee. Things we as Bucks fans have been dealing with for some time.

Not to mention, Giannis' supermax extension was signed just under 365 days ago and won't go into effect until the start of next season. He cannot become a free agent until 2026 at the earliest. To be fair, the contract extension Damian Lillard signed with Portland in 2022 also goes into effect next year since he was traded to the Bucks. This was a player who showed almost as much loyalty as Giannis, though with a few key differences: Giannis' teams haven't missed the playoffs, let alone finished under .500, since 2016, and Giannis won a title here. This means a lot more than most people think, even though it happened three years ago.

Additionally, no one these days seems to care about long-term commitments players make to franchises, previous statements be damned. That's why the usual suspects jumped in on this harmless joke from Giannis, which was obviously sarcastic. Amick describes how he mentioned to Giannis during training camp that contacts at other NBA franchises were monitoring the situation in Milwaukee regarding him. Giannis then grabbed a Bucks employee walking by and said with a wry smile, “If we don't win this year, would you be fired?” Have this in the back of your mind: “What if this year doesn't go well? “Yes, if we don’t win a championship, I might be replaced. Yes, that is the job we live for. This is the world we live in. This affects everyone.”

Apparently the man is joking about being traded. We all know his sense of humor from all the press conference quotes, his dad's jokes at media day, and his silliness on his Instagram. He even pulled a similar prank on Jon Horst. The uninitiated cannot take him seriously. He's a franchise player and his presence is by far the main reason the Bucks compete for titles every year, and his lack of exposure – like last year's postseason – is the main reason they don't advance. No team would willingly trade him, period. No matter how much you think a front office is incompetent, that doesn't happen.

Amick recently appeared on Hear District with Marques and Kris Johnson, a Bucks+ podcast, and clarified exactly what happened. You can watch the entire interview and podcast below, but here's what Amick had to say:

“In my opinion, hypothetically, if we were next summer and the landscape no longer looked so promising – let's say Dame has had another tough year and maybe he didn't enjoy the experience out there and he didn't have the support he needed – I've seen stranger things, but we all know he loves this community. We all know how invested the organization is in him. It’s hard for me to imagine him wanting to get out of there.”