Giannis Antetokounmpo’s next team: Celtics jump Heat as new betting favorites to land star

The defining storyline of this NBA offseason is where Giannis Antetokounmpo will play next. With the Milwaukee Bucks’ self-imposed deadline of the NBA Draft around the corner, basically everyone is on Giannis watch right now.

With every big character arc in the NBA, rumors follow. And, as with any speculation, sportsbooks and prediction markets have a say. Let’s use the betting odds to provide a lens for peering into the Greek Freak’s potential future.

Over the weekend, the Miami Heat were pretty sizeable favorites to land Giannis, with the Boston Celtics in second. That all changed on Monday, after ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reported on “Get Up” that the Celtics have put Jaylen Brown “on the table” in a potential deal with the Milwaukee Bucks.

The prediction market Kalshi, which has had a market up for Antetokounmpo’s next team dating back to March, shifted considerably after the segment. And for the first time since this market was posted, the Celtics now sit at over 50 percent, making them the leading contenders to be Antetokounmpo’s next employer. Currently, Boston’s odds have moved up to 60 percent to land Antetokounmpo.

The 3 teams that should trade for Giannis

Esfandiar Baraheni

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That is a sizeable move, considering the Heat had 71.4 percent odds as of Sunday afternoon. Now Miami is down to 36 percent. There’s also a 7 percent chance Antetokounmpo stays in Milwaukee or retires, which, given he’s 31 years old and set to make $121 million over the next two seasons, has never really been a consideration.

Kalshi is also offering a market on Jaylen Brown’s next team, and his odds to go to Milwaukee have soared over the last couple of days, currently trading at 56 percent. His odds of staying with Boston have also decreased from 60 percent to 31 percent.

On the sportsbook front, we’ve seen similar movement.

As of last Saturday, Miami was listed at -130 to land Giannis at DraftKings, while Boston sat at +175. As of writing this story, Boston is listed at -140, with Miami at +120.

“I was really skeptical that the Boston Celtics were going to go all in on this, and from what I understand, they have,” said Windhorst, who narrowed down the sweepstakes to Boston and Miami.

Looking back even further, the Celtics were extreme long shots (4 percent odds) in March as they were humming along to the Eastern Conference’s No. 2 seed, thanks largely to a career year by Brown while Jayson Tatum worked his way back from an Achilles injury. At that point, the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks were the favorites at Kalshi to land Antetokounmpo at about 25 percent.

After the Philadelphia 76ers eliminated the Celtics from the first round of the playoffs, Boston jumped to 11 percent. When president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said at his end-of-season news conference the team needed to change its play style to get more easy looks, the odds bumped up again, to 27 percent. From there, they consistently dipped for about a month and only saw a resurgence within the past week and a half.

The Athletic’s Sam Amick reported last week that the Celtics “have gone to great lengths to avoid the elephant in the room,” meaning Brown, the five-time all-star who has spent the first 10 seasons of his career in Boston. Even considering trading a player of that stature can unsettle a team if the deal is not consummated.

But unless Tatum were on the table – and that was never a discussion – any deal by Boston to acquire Antetokounmpo logically always needed to include Brown. Otherwise, it would be difficult to match salaries, let alone accumulate enough assets to satisfy Milwaukee.

Another complication is whether the Bucks would want to keep Brown or prefer a complete tear-down, requiring a third team to take him in exchange for more draft capital and/or young players. Even in potential deals with the Heat, Marc Stein reported the Detroit Pistons could enter the mix and acquire Tyler Herro. The guard is actually from the Milwaukee area but turns 27 in January and may not be on the same timeline as Milwaukee’s next winning era.

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That was the talk of the weekend. Now, Boston appears to be in control, depending on what else it’s willing to give up.

As mentioned earlier, Bucks co-owner Jimmy Haslam set Tuesday’s draft as a self-imposed deadline, in part because the team would want to begin rebuilding with an extra pick. The Bucks own the No. 10 selection after a 32-50 season in which Giannis played just 36 games. It was their worst record since his rookie year in 2013-14.

Antetokounmpo, a back-to-back MVP in 2018-19 and 2019-20, has the fifth-highest odds (+1300) at multiple sportsbooks to win the award next season.

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s next team: Celtics jump Heat as new betting favorites to land star

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2026-06-23 20:50:42