While you may have known that Giannis is currently in Brazil because of something else, and after reports of how teams might be moving on from the largely baseless trade speculation that’s dogged him for over a month, the man himself has something to say. As he’s been wont to do over the years, this didn’t come from anything in American media or on his social media, but in a true classic format for Giannis: an interview with a foreign outlet. However, unlike when he spoke about his NBA future in his native tongue with a Greek interviewer, this apparently came in English. Courtesy of EuroHoops:
There are two great teams that got there,” the Most Valuable Player of the Finals 2021 told the Brazilian outlet “Coast to Coast”, referring to the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers reaching the 2025 Finals... “Indiana, with my friend Pascal Siakam, is reaping the rewards, and OKC simply has the MVP. I’m rooting for good basketball. The Finals are different, I hope to be back soon with the Bucks,” he added, all but rejecting considering other options to contend for a second championship.
You can follow the link above to the original quotes from the Brazilian source. To be fair, these are in Portuguese, but unless he’s somehow become trilingual recently, they are almost certainly translated from English. I’m no linguist, but if you plug his statement into Google Translate, it looks pretty faithful to me. Also interesting is that this came without a direct question about his future; he was asked if he was watching the Finals, and unsolicited, he said that he hopes to be back there soon with the Bucks.
Giannis is a private guy, and it should be noted that the national media firestorm was set off first by speculation after the Bucks’ third consecutive first-round exit. Only a week or two later came the wishy-washy report from Shams Charania that he was “open to considering the possibility of leaving” or some such noncommittal word salad that doesn’t actually say too much. And what followed was the usual breathless trademongering from the typical national voices, some of whom don’t seem to operate in good faith towards small market franchises.
Now, though, Giannis gave an unprompted answer about how he feels about remaining with Milwaukee, which is truly the only thing he’s said about the matter publicly since their season ended. Predictably, and unlike when the aforementioned Shams thing dropped, you won’t see anything about this on ESPN.com or anywhere on The Ringer. No surprise. And although it’s reasonable to still have some skepticism—giving a PR-friendly answer, 4D chess, et cetera et cetera—this is definitely more definitive than anything that’s come from the national media that doesn’t actually cover the team.
A lot of fans and analysts who do follow the Bucks closely have been operating under the assumption he’ll be back for 2025–26. That increasingly appears well-founded and the way we’ll continue doing business. I suggest non-Bucks partisans do the same.