Eastern Conference Postseason Field Set As Bucks Eliminated
Saturday’s loss to San Antonio mathematically eliminated the Bucks from playoff contention, capping an extremely disappointing season and setting up a resumption of the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade sweepstakes, which could be the biggest story of the summer.
Milwaukee is the fifth Eastern team to be eliminated, joining Indiana, Brooklyn, Washington and Chicago, which means the 10 conference teams that will participate in the postseason are now set.
The Bucks’ decision to hold onto Antetokounmpo past the February 5 trade deadline signaled that the organization hoped to make a late-season push to at least reach the play-in tournament and then try to make a playoff run. That never materialized as the team has gone 9-14 since then and Antetokounmpo has played just six times due to the combination of a calf strain and a hyperextended left knee and bone bruise.
The Bucks’ strategy of keeping Antetokounmpo wasn’t accompanied by any other big moves to make the team more competitive. Milwaukee’s only deadline transaction was to get involved in a three-team trade to acquire Oklahoma City’s Ousmane Dieng, who has been a productive addition, and Phoenix’s Nigel Hayes-Davis, who was waived the next day.
Cam Thomas was a surprise addition in early February, signing for the rest of the season after being waived by Brooklyn. Although he got off to a strong start as a scoring threat off the bench, Thomas was released on Monday after 18 games with Milwaukee.
The seeds for this season’s failure were planted in last year’s playoffs when Damian Lillard suffered a torn Achilles. Instead of waiting a year for the veteran guard to heal, Bucks management made the controversial decision to waive him and use the stretch provision to spread his remaining $112.6MM salary over the next five years.
The newly created cap space was used to sign Myles Turner away from Indiana. Turner has provided a steady presence in the middle, even though his scoring average (11.9 PPG) and shooting numbers (44% from the field and 38.4% from three-point range) have declined from last year’s production with the Pacers.
This marks the Bucks’ first non-playoff season since 2016, and it’s just the second time since Antetokounmpo’s rookie year that they’ve failed to qualify. After today’s game, coach Doc Rivers talked about the frustrations that led up to this point, relays Eric Nehm of The Athletic (Twitter link).
“It’s been disappointing obviously,” Rivers said. “Since I’ve been here, I haven’t had a healthy stretch and it’s been your key guys. It’s been Giannis. It’s been Dame. And you hope you can play through that, but we just haven’t had the ability. This year, having only one quote-unquote star, every other team has two and three. We needed health. We were thin. We knew that before the season started and it just didn’t go our way. All the talk and all that stuff probably didn’t help either.
“But I always try to look at silver linings and Ryan (Rollins) is one of them. Pete Nance is another one. Ous (Dieng) is one of them. And we gotta rehabilitate or get A.J. Green going again. He’s a good player. He’s played too many minutes. We’ve had no choice and I think that’s put him in a tough spot and I feel bad for him at times. Bobby (Portis) is Bobby. He’s been a pro throughout this year. We had a great talk today about it before the game. I’m so proud of him as a leader. He tries to do the right stuff. He tries to say the right things in the locker room.”
Rivers, 64, is entering the final year of his contract, and his future in Milwaukee could be tied to Antetokounmpo’s. With only six current players currently under contract for next season, plenty of change could lie ahead, whether Antetokounmpo returns or not.
Bucks’ Kevin Porter Jr. (Knee) May Miss Rest Of Season
Bucks guard Kevin Porter Jr. is listed as out for Saturday’s game against San Antonio due to synovitis in his right knee, tweets Eric Nehm of The Athletic. It will be the fifth consecutive absence for Porter.
According to Nehm (Twitter link), head coach Doc Rivers said he’d be “surprised” if Porter is able to play again in 2025/26, which suggests the 25-year-old’s season may be over.
In his first full season in Milwaukee, Porter has been limited to just 38 appearances due to health problems. He has averaged 17.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists in 33.2 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .465/.322/.878.
Porter sprained his left ankle in the Bucks’ season opener, and as he was working to make his way back from that injury, he sustained a torn meniscus in his right knee. He wound up missing another four weeks due to that injury following surgery. He also missed four straight games earlier this month due to swelling in his right knee, a common symptom of synovitis.
The 30th overall pick in the 2019 draft, Porter has been involved in several off-court incidents over the years, both before and after he was drafted. He missed the entire 2023/24 season following domestic violence allegations, which resulted in an NBA investigation that reportedly concluded last July.
Porter holds a $5.4MM player option for 2026/27. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer if he declines that option.
Injury Notes: Giannis, Cade, Edwards, Kings, K. George, Wade
The National Basketball Players Association seemed to imply in a statement earlier this week that Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo is healthy enough to play, but that’s not the case, according to head coach Doc Rivers. As Eric Nehm of The Athletic relays, Rivers told reporters on Wednesday that Antetokounmpo continues to recover from the left knee hyperextension and bone bruise that have sidelined him since March 15.
“He’s not (healthy),” Rivers said. “He’s progressing. He’s just not healthy. Our focus right now is just getting him healthy. We’re just trying to get Giannis cleared and healthy; that’s our only focus. All the other stuff, we stay above.”
Reporting last week suggested that Antetokounmpo and the Bucks were at odds over whether he should be shut down for the rest of the season, with Milwaukee preferring to take a conservative approach and the two-time MVP pushing to return. The NBPA’s statement suggested that the Bucks are motivated to hold Giannis out of action to potentially improve their draft position, an idea Rivers downplayed.
“We didn’t have a meeting about this (statement from the NBPA),” Rivers said. “We didn’t have one discussion. (General manager) Jon Horst didn’t call me to talk about this, just to show you the concern we have.”
Here are several more injury updates from around the NBA:
- Appearing on NBA Countdown on Wednesday (Twitter video link), ESPN’s Shams Charania provided health updates on Cade Cunningham (collapsed lung) and Anthony Edwards (knee inflammation). According to Charania, the Pistons are optimistic that Cunningham will be able to return in time for the start of the playoffs, while the Timberwolves consider Edwards day-to-day at this point, and he could return as Saturday vs. Detroit or Monday at Dallas.
- Kings forward Keegan Murray, out since February 25 due to a left ankle sprain, is making “good progress” in his return-to-play process and is resuming contact work, the team announced on Wednesday (Twitter link via James Ham of ESPN 1320). The update suggests Sacramento plans on having Murray back before the end of the season. Veteran guard Russell Westbrook, meanwhile, underwent an MRI on his sore right foot and has been diagnosed with joint irritation of the first toe. He’ll remain out, with further updates provided as appropriate, per the Kings.
- The Wizards, who announced on March 4 that forward Kyshawn George had sustained a partial UCL tear in his left elbow and would be reevaluated in three weeks, provided an update right on schedule on Wednesday. According to the team (Twitter link), elbow specialist Dr. Keith Meister confirmed this week that George has a Grade 2 distal UCL tear. The plan is to continue to treat the injury “conservatively” and evaluate the 22-year-old again next Wednesday.
- Cavaliers forward Dean Wade appeared to suffer an ankle injury during warm-ups prior to Wednesday’s contest vs. Miami, per Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com (Twitter links). While Wade was held out of the game, Fedor refers to it as a “precaution,” which suggests the injury probably isn’t serious.
And-Ones: Holmes, Expansion, Project B, More
Panathinaikos has parted ways with former NBA big man Richaun Holmes, the Greek EuroLeague team announced on Tuesday (Twitter link).
After playing in the NBA for 10 seasons from 2015-25, Holmes signed with Panathinaikos last August, agreeing to a one-year deal that included a team option for a second season. The deal reportedly made him one of the highest-paid players in Europe.
Although Holmes got off to a good start in the EuroLeague, he sustained an MCL injury in the midst of his integration period with his new team, notes Johnny Askounis of Eurohoops, and he saw his minutes decline after he returned to action. The 32-year-old averaged 7.9 points and 4.3 rebounds in 18.7 minutes per game across 19 EuroLeague appearances.
Holmes played in 489 regular season games during his decade in the NBA, but was forced to accept a lesser role as he bounced around the league in his last few years after being Sacramento’s primary starting center from 2019-22.
Here are more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Expanding to 32 teams and establishing a European league could net NBA owners $20 billion or more, according to Kurt Badenhausen and Eben Novy-Williams of Sportico, who conservatively estimate $15 billion in expansion fees for new franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle and another $5 billion in fees for NBA Europe teams. As Badenhausen and Novy-Williams point out, expansion money isn’t shared with players, since it falls outside of basketball-related income, which means each team owner is likely looking at $650MM or more if the NBA expands both domestically and into Europe.
- Joe Vardon and Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic provide the latest details on the emerging global basketball league known as Project B, which is working with European super-agent Misko Raznatovic and counts LeBron James‘ longtime friend and business partner Maverick Carter as an adviser. Project B has reached deals with several women’s basketball players and is looking to establish a foothold in men’s basketball as well, per Vardon and Vorkunov, who say the league will aim to bring in current and former NBA players, as well as top young prospects from outside the NBA for its developmental program.
- ESPN’s Zach Kram ranks the NBA’s best and worst 10 transactions since last summer. The Hornets‘ selection of Kon Knueppel at No. 4 in the draft tops Kram’s list of the best moves, while the Bucks waiving and stretching Damian Lillard in order to sign Myles Turner headlines his list of the worst moves.
Central Notes: Nance, Cunningham, Cavs, McClung
When the Bucks promoted forward Pete Nance to their 15-man roster, they dipped into their room exception to sign him to a new three-year, $5.81MM contract that exceeds a minimum deal in terms of both first-year salary and total years, Hoops Rumors has confirmed.
The Bucks used roughly $5.13MM of their room exception last summer to re-sign Kevin Porter Jr., and it has been prorating downward since January 10, but the team still had a portion of it left to put toward Nance’s contract.
Nance received a $600K salary for the rest of this season, well above his prorated minimum of $277,137. As a trade-off, the deal includes a non-guaranteed minimum salary ($2,497,812) for 2026/27, with a non-guaranteed minimum-salary team option ($2,707,612) for ’27/28.
Nance’s 2026/27 salary would become guaranteed if he remains under contract through July 4, 2026.
We have more from around the Central:
- In the wake of the NBPA issuing a statement criticizing the 65-game rule in support of Pistons guard Cade Cunningham, agent Jeff Schwartz added his voice to those arguing that his client doesn’t deserve to miss out on All-NBA recognition this season. “Cade has delivered a first-team All-NBA season,” Schwartz told ESPN’s Shams Charania. “If he falls just short of an arbitrary games-played threshold due to legitimate injury, it should not disqualify him from recognition he has clearly earned over the course of the season. The league should be rewarding excellence, not enforcing rigid cutoffs that ignore context. An exception needs to be made.” Cunningham, who was diagnosed last week with a collapsed lung, appears unlikely to make the five additional appearances necessary to meet the 65-game threshold.
- The Cavaliers beat Orlando on Tuesday for their fourth consecutive win, but head coach Kenny Atkinson expressed displeasure after the game with his defense, which surrendered 131 points in the victory, writes Joe Vardon of The Athletic. “I just told the team in the locker room, if we’re going to play defense like this, we’re going to have a short playoff stint,” Atkinson said. “… We’re the number one offensive team over the last (several) games. But there’s two sides of the ball. We’re tilted one way right now. … You have to be good on both ends. You got to be top 10 (on) offense and defense; it gives you the best chance. We’re not.” Atkinson added that the “guys who defend” will be the ones who are part of his rotation in the playoffs.
- One of just two players in NBA history to win three dunk contests, Bulls two-way guard Mac McClung now holds another record. He’s the G League’s new all-time leading scorer across the regular season, Tip-Off Tournament, and postseason, having surpassed Renaldo Major‘s 5,299 total points, according to the league (Twitter link). Major still holds the NBAGL record for regular season points (5,058).
NBPA Responds To Bucks’ Reported Plan To Shut Down Giannis
The National Basketball Players Association has weighed in on the disagreement between Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks about whether the star forward should be shut down for the rest of the 2025/26 season, according to Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
Reporting last week indicated that the Bucks wanted to hold out their franchise player for the next few weeks after an injury-plagued season in which he battled knee, groin, ankle, and calf issues. Antetokounmpo, however, was said to be pushing to return to action once he recovered from his left knee hyperextension and bone bruise, despite the fact that Milwaukee has fallen out of postseason contention.
The NBPA issued a statement on Tuesday that both supported Antetokounmpo and questioned whether the NBA is committed to enforcing its player participation policy.
“The Player Participation Policy was designed by the league to hold teams accountable and ensure that when an All-Star like Giannis Antetokounmpo is healthy and ready to play, he is on the court,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, anti-tanking policies are only as effective as their enforcement; fans, broadcast partner, and the integrity of the game itself will continue to suffer as long as ownership goes unchecked. We look forward to collaborating with the NBA on meaningful new proposals that will directly address and discourage tanking.”
The NBA’s player participation policy specifically addresses a situation like this one. A team is considered to be in violation of the policy if it shuts down a healthy “star” for an extended period. The rule is designed to avoid scenarios in which tanking teams sit their best players in order to improve their draft position.
Of course, whether a player qualifies as healthy isn’t necessarily a black and white issue. It’s certainly not uncommon for players to play through minor ailments over the course of the 82-game season, and multiple medical experts may have differing opinions on whether or not a player has fully recovered from a given injury.
We still have nearly three weeks left in the regular season, so if Antetokounmpo feels as if he’s ready to return to action at some point during that window, we’ll see if the Bucks relent and activate him.
The fact that the players’ union expressed a willingness to collaborate with the league on anti-tanking measures is also noteworthy, since commissioner Adam Silver has stated in no uncertain terms that the NBA intends to implement new rules on that front ahead of the 2026/27 season.
Bucks Promote Pete Nance To Multiyear Standard Deal
The Bucks have converted Pete Nance‘s two-way contract to a multiyear standard deal, the team announced (via Twitter).
As we detailed in another story, Cam Thomas was waived in order to create an opening on the 15-man roster for Nance.
Monday’s game at the Clippers would have marked the 50th and final game in which Nance could have been active as part of his two-way contract. The 26-year-old forward/center has been receiving rotation minutes in recent weeks with Giannis Antetokounmpo once again sidelined, this time due to a knee injury.
Promoting Nance to a standard deal means he can now be active for the remainder of the regular season. Theoretically he would be eligible to appear in the postseason as well, but the Bucks will almost certainly be eliminated in the coming days based on how far behind they are in the standings.
Nance played four years of college basketball at Northwestern prior to transferring to UNC for his “super senior” year in 2022/23. He spent part of his rookie season with the Cavaliers and played a couple months of 2024/25 on a two-way contract with the Sixers.
Nance caught on with the Bucks in February 2025, when he signed a two-year, two-way contract after he was waived by Philadelphia.
Through 37 games in 2025/26, Nance has averaged 4.5 points and 2.2 rebounds while shooting 56.4% from the floor and 47.9% from three-point range in 12.1 minutes per contest.
The Bucks still have a full 15-man standard roster and now have an open two-way spot. They won’t be able to fill it until the offseason though, as the deadline to sign players to two-way deals was March 4.
Bucks Waive Cam Thomas
The Bucks have waived Cam Thomas, reports Shams Charania of ESPN (via Twitter). The move is official, Milwaukee announced in a press release (Twitter link).
As we noted in a separate story, Thomas was cut loose because the Bucks wanted to promote Pete Nance, who was signed to a multiyear standard contract. Nance was previously on a two-way deal.
It’s a surprising development, since Milwaukee targeted Thomas immediately after the trade deadline. However, he was on a minimum-salary contract that only covered the rest of the season, so he makes sense as an odd man out if he isn’t part of the team’s plans beyond 2025/26.
According to Charania (Twitter link), general manager Jon Horst pitched Thomas on the idea of being a key part of the Bucks’ present and future, and head coach Doc Rivers compared the high-scoring guard to a couple of Sixth Man of the Year winners he coached earlier in his career (Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams) shortly after the deadline.
While this hasn’t been confirmed, it’s possible that Thomas may have been the one who sought a change of scenery. The 24-year-old had been playing fewer minutes (16.6 per game) with the Bucks than he was with the Nets (24.3 MPG) and received a pair of DNP-CDs last week. Thomas asked Brooklyn to waive him last month.
In 18 games with the Bucks, Thomas averaged 10.6 PPG, 1.9 APG and 1.6 RPG on .431/.275/.754 shooting. The former first-round pick is a notoriously subpar defender and also struggled with turnovers in Milwaukee (1.4 per game).
The Bucks will carry a dead-money cap hit of $844,607 if Thomas clears waivers in a couple days. Thomas would be a free agent at that point, but he won’t be eligible to compete in the playoffs because he was released after March 1, notes Keith Smith of Spotrac (via Twitter).
If Thomas is claimed on the waiver wire, his cap charge would transfer to the team that adds him and Milwaukee would no longer carry his salary on its books. However, he would remain ineligible to participate in the postseason.
And-Ones: Las Vegas, Free Agents, WNBA, Misery Index
The NBA’s Board of Governors will vote this week on whether to explore adding expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle. Mike Vorkunov, Jesse Granger, Vic Tafur, Sabreena Merchant and Oskar Garcia of The Athletic consider whether Las Vegas is the right choice for NBA expansion.
While the general consensus among the authors is that the city would be a viable choice for expansion despite being a relatively small media market, Tafur suggests that it would benefit the league if the potential new team is able to be competitive sooner rather than later, as Las Vegas “does not have a strong attention span.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Substack link) examines the contract situations of 10 players who will or could be free agents this summer, including four Lakers (Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Luke Kennard and Marcus Smart) and two Pistons (Tobias Harris and Daniss Jenkins). Reaves has earned a significant raise on his current contract and has boosted his value this season, according to Gozlan, who wonders if a rival team might give the 27-year-old guard a two- or three-year maximum-salary deal in an effort to poach him away from Los Angeles. Either way, Gozlan expects Reaves to still be a member of the Lakers in 2026/27.
- The WNBA and WNBPA have reached a tentative agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement, the NBA announced in a press release. Players are projected to receive major pay increases across the board, among other noteworthy details.
- Zach Harper of The Athletic lists the top five teams on his Misery Index, with the Bucks coming in at No. 1, followed by the Kings at No. 2 and the Pelicans at No. 3. Not only has Milwaukee had a very disappointing season, but the team also doesn’t have young players to build around or much hope of turning things around in the near future, Harper writes.
Bucks Co-Owner Edens: Giannis Will Be Extended Or Traded
The Bucks have no intention of letting Giannis Antetokounmpo play out the final guaranteed year of his contract in 2026/27 and opt for free agency during the 2027 offseason, team co-owner Wes Edens told Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.
“Giannis is going into the last year (of his contract),” Edens said. “So one of two things will happen: Either he will be extended or he’ll be traded. The likelihood you’ll let him just kind of play out the last year, we can’t afford that. It’s not consistent with what’s good for the organization. That’s not a Giannis issue. That’s any player that’s in their last year.”
Antetokounmpo’s contract, which pays him $54.1MM this season, includes a $58.5MM guaranteed salary for ’26/27, followed by a $62.8MM player option for ’27/28. He’ll become eligible on October 1 to sign a four-year, maximum-salary extension that would be worth a projected $275MM (the exact value would depend on where the ’27/28 cap ends up).
However, if Giannis informs the Bucks this offseason that he doesn’t intend to sign that extension once he’s eligible to do so, it sounds like the team is prepared to reopen trade discussions that began in earnest prior to last month’s deadline, even if the two-time MVP doesn’t explicitly request a change of scenery.
[RELATED: Giannis Resisting Bucks’ Plan To Shut Him Down For Season]
Still, according to Shelburne, rival executives and insiders around the league are skeptical about whether the Bucks’ choice will be quite that simple.
As Shelburne explains, the team has an unusual ownership structure that involves the governor title changing hands between co-owners Edens and Jimmy Haslam every five years. In addition to controlling ownership rotating between those two men, another franchise shareholder, Jamie Dinan, is involved in major decisions. The setup has created some confusion among rival teams about who would get the final say in Milwaukee on a roster move as monumental as an Antetokounmpo trade.
“This has nothing to do with Giannis and whether he asks out,” one source told Shelburne. “It’s about who’s making the decision on whether to trade Giannis, and I don’t think anyone knows that. I deal with them all the time and honestly it depends on the day. They’re not even close to being ready to make a decision like that.”
Edens, who will be the controlling owner for two more years before handing the reins to Haslam for five years beginning in 2028, tells ESPN that his partnership with Haslam is “unbelievably good” and that he has no concerns about the arrangement, but Shelburne suggests there have been signs that Haslam’s influence within the organization is growing since he bought Marc Lasry‘s share of the team in 2023.
When longtime Bucks president Peter Feigin left the organization earlier this season, he was replaced by Haslam Sports Group executive Josh Glessing, according to Shelburne, who also hears from sources that one team discussing a potential Giannis trade last month had direct negotiations with Haslam.
“The more time goes on, the more power Jimmy’s going to have,” a source close to the team said. “And long term, it’ s going to be his anyway, so he’s not going to let the guy that’s [passing controlling ownership on] eventually dictate what it looks like.”
“We mostly dealt with (general manager Jon) Horst,” added a rival executive whose team pursued Antetokounmpo. “But our impression was that Jimmy was really the one who would decide this.”
Although Edens insists that he and Haslam are “completely united” on the Giannis situation, other teams and Bucks minority shareholders are keeping a close eye on the situation due to the way in which the relationship between Edens and Lasry fell apart before Lasry sold his stake in the franchise. Notably, Shelburne writes, the two co-owners disagreed on who to hire to replace former GM John Hammond in 2017 — Horst was eventually promoted to fill the role after the team seriously considered its own assistant GM Justin Zanik and Nuggets executive Arturas Karnisovas.
Here are a few more items of interest from Shelburne’s story, which is well worth reading in full:
- Multiple sources told ESPN that the Bucks’ asking price for Antetokounmpo prior to February’s deadline was “enormous,” with one team suggesting that Milwaukee was simply gauging the market and sought “all our draft picks and good young players.” Another rival executive said there was “no question” that the Bucks wanted to hang onto the star forward. “Because it never reached a point in time, in any of our discussions with them, where they said, ‘We will do it if you do X,'” that exec told Shelburne.
- The Warriors made an offer for Giannis that included four unprotected first-round picks, but they never seemed to gain any real momentum toward a deal, sources tell ESPN. According to Shelburne, the Bucks were more interested in pursuing concepts that would net them a young cornerstone like Cavaliers big man Evan Mobley or Sixers guard VJ Edgecombe, though there’s no indication Cleveland or Philadelphia would’ve been willing to discuss those players.
- While the Bucks may be preparing to offer Antetokounmpo another maximum-salary extension during the offseason, multiple league executives believe the club would be better off accepting the best possible trade offer for him, Shelburne writes.“He’s still a game changer, but he’s 31 with a history of leg injuries,” one exec said. “And now you’d basically be trading for a guy on an expiring deal, so I’m not sure the offers they’ll get this summer are going to be better than what they already got.”