On the (NBA) road again ... with What Next thoughts for the Bucks in the air wherever you go

Giannis Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee future is the unavoidable topic in pretty much every corner of the NBA map. So let's get into it in this travel-delayed edition of the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza

LOS ANGELES — First things first ...

It's obviously not Tuesday.

You guys know this happens to me sometimes and this is one of those times: My final Tuesday in April unexpectedly veered off track with some breaking news dribbling in about Steve Nash and his burgeoning broadcasting career ... followed by a DLLS Mavs podcast and then a flight to Los Angeles ... and then, well, your trusty Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza had to be pushed into Wednesday.

That was the view outside my hotel window on this Wednesday morning. I have indeed made the trip to Tinseltown to see Timberwolves at Lakers later tonight in a game that the hosts have to have to extend their season, followed by my long-awaited maiden visit to the sparkly new Intuit Dome to see Game 6 of Nuggets/Clippers on Thursday night.

Yeah: It's a glorious (and savory) back-to-back.

Of course, after everything that happened in Indianapolis on Tuesday night, I have a feeling that A) you will yet again scoff at my questionable decision-making that had me in the air for the umpteenth time while a ridiculously contentious classic involving two teams that really don't like each other was unfolding and B) you really want to talk Giannis Antetokounmpo's future as a Buck.

Don't worry.

We've already had articles here on Sunday and Monday to start diving into the Bucks' decidedly unsavory future and will surely have many, many more forthcoming.

Photo Editor Aaron loves his win probability stats and cites them off his phone all the time, so it's in his honor that I have to make sure you saw my pal Ben Golliver's tweet Tuesday night about the lead that the Bucks impossibly let slip away:

Milwaukee's seven-point cushion with 35 seconds left in overtime had provided Giannis and Co. with a 97.9% shot at a season-saving W that could have forced a Game 6 back in Brewtown. Now?

The Bucks, as covered here Monday, are staring into an abyss that might trump anything that currently confronts Phoenix … or Philadelphia … or Miami … or Dallas. Milwaukee has won one playoff series since winning the championship in 2020-21. Antetokounmpo just played in more playoff games in Round 1 (five) than he managed in the previous two postseasons (three) thanks to injury woes. Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard have only played in two full playoff games together in two seasons … and now Lillard, at 34, is facing the rehab battle of his life after sustaining a torn left Achilles on Sunday night. And Bucks general manager Jon Horst, while now possessing the security that comes with a contract extension secured last week, does not have control of a first-round pick until 2031.

Horst's bold gambles over the past half-decade, as we keep saying, led to the Bucks' first title team in 50 years and two Antetokounmpo contract extensions. Only now, throughout the NBA and the basketball public, Giannis-centric curiosity is everywhere:

Will Antetokounmpo ask to be traded elsewhere?

Will the Bucks, for the first time ever, even suggest it?

"Look … I'm not going to do this," Antetokounmpo said late Tuesday after his team's season-ending collapse in Game 5, rebuffing a reporter's question about whether he believes he can still win another ring in Milwaukee. "I’m not going to do this."

"Whatever I say, I know how it's going to translate," Antetokounmpo continued. "I don't know, man. I wish I was still playing. I wish I was still, like, competing and going back to Milwaukee [for Game 6]. I don't know."

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Friends (and rivals) reunited

Kudos to Yahoo Sports' social media team with this reaction to the tweet Dirk Nowitzki posted after my story dropped about Nash joining Amazon's new NBA team to work on both studio and game coverage next season when Prime Video joins ESPN and NBC as NBA rightsholders:

Then later in the day — told you it was an eventful Tuesday — Front Office Sports' Ryan Glasspiegel reported that Dwyane Wade and Candace Parker are also expected to join Team Amazon in the near future.

So ...

Nowitzki and Nash will be reunited as teammates for the first time in more than 20 years after the Phoenix Suns broke up their pick-and-roll partnership by signing the Canadian away in free agency in the summer of 2004.

And there will presumably be times that Nowitzki and Wade, twice NBA Finals foes in one of the modern NBA's spiciest personal rivalries, will end up on the same Amazon set breaking down the game.

#thisleague

PS — Had some info in the enclosed Nash story about his shift away from coaching to broadcasting pursuits. More here:

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Handy tips for Gmail users

Thought it wise to re-run these important and helpful suggestions from the support desk, for those who use Gmail to receive The Stein Line, to ensure that this newsletter gets to you expeditiously every time I post:

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Numbers Game

(Editor's Note: Leaning HEAVILY on the ever-tremendous research provided by

Keerthika Uthayakumar

to compile this on-the-run edition of Numbers Game.)

🏀 50

The opening round of the NBA playoffs has been mostly tremendous … apart from a few nasty blowouts. Both Oklahoma City (51 points in Game 1 over Memphis) and Cleveland (55 points in Game 4 to complete its sweep of Miami) have posted 50-point wins this month; two teams doing so in the same postseason (per Stat Keeks research) has never happened before.

🏀 26.7

My belief that Kyle Kuzma would be a difference-maker for the Bucks after they acquired him from Washington in a midseason trade that required Milwaukee to surrender title-team mainstay Khris Middleton will go down as one of my most egregious misreads. Kuzma shot 4-for-15 on layups alone in the Indiana series … which computes to a success rate of 26.7% percent. On layups! In Game 1 against the Pacers, of course, Kuzma became just the sixth player in league history to play at least 20 minutes in a playoff game and fail to record a single point, rebound, assist, steal or block.

🏀 30.4

Giannis Antetokounmpo is averaging 30.4 points (along with 15.0 rebounds and 6.4 assists) in his last 10 playoff games. The Bucks are 1-9 in those games.

🏀 0-6

Milwaukee is also 0-6 on the road in its first two postseasons under Doc Rivers. Antetokounmpo, of course, did not play in the Bucks' first-round loss to Indiana in 2024.

🏀 25

The Bucks have made 25 trades since Jon Horst took over as general manager in June 2017 according to bookeeping from ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Those trades, per Marks, have forced Horst to part with seven future first-round picks and 18 future second-round picks in addition to three first-round pick swaps that the Bucks have agreed to.

🏀 113

Damian Lillard is owed $113 million by Milwaukee over the next two seasons ,,, including a $63.2 million player option in 2026-27.

🏀 27

On the same night Miami's season ended with that embarrassing 55-point loss at home to Cleveland to punctuate the Cavaliers' 4-0 first-round sweep, Jimmy Butler had 27 points, five rebounds and six assists in his first game back from a pelvic contusion to help Golden State seize a 3-1 series lead over the second-seeded Rockets in the West heading into tonight's Game 5 in Houston.

🏀 24

Houston's Jalen Green has 24 points combined in Games 1, 3 and 4 of the Golden State series. Green scored 38 points in the Rockets' Game 2 triumph.

🏀 6.3

Denver's Jamal Murray and New York's Jalen Brunson, as unearthed by Stat Keeks, both score 6.3 points per game more in the postseason than they do in the regular season to share the largest such differential in league history. In third place in that category? Denver's Nikola Jokić at +5.8 points per game in the postseason compared to his regular season career average.

🏀 8

The Heat have lost eight straight home playoff games since the 2023 Eastern Conference finals.

🏀 30

Miami also just became the first team in NBA playoff history to lose back-to-back playoff games by 30 points or more. Worse yet: The Heat's 37-point loss in Game 3, like the 55-point loss in Game 4, was absorbed at home.

🏀 42

The Celtics’ Jayson Tatum finished off the Orlando series with three consecutive games in which he scored at least 35 points, made at least 10 free throws and didn't miss a single free throw. According to longtime Boston statistician Dick Lipe, no player besides Tatum has ever done that in the playoffs; Lillard did it three times during the regular season while still in Portland (2018, 2021 and 2023).

🏀 3

A link to the latest NBA podcast curations from my three-times-a-week narration for Hark Audio is embedded in this sentence.