Heat’s Pat Riley introduces Giannis, turns focus to LeBron: ‘Another one we have to land’

{“@context”:”https://schema.org”,”@type”:”VideoObject”,”@id”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/video/sHGJop76tgRYNLN/”,”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/video/sHGJop76tgRYNLN/”,”name”:”How the Heat pulled off a heist for Giannis”,”description”:”Esfandiar Baraheni breaks down the trade the sends Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat. “,”uploadDate”:”2026-06-23T17:20:09.711Z”,”duration”:”PT3M”,”thumbnailUrl”:”https://cdn-media.theathletic.com/video-stream/auto-thumbnail/sHGJop76tgRYNLN/doZ6wafq4S1i.0000000.jpg”,”contentUrl”:”https://video.nyt.com/athletic/streams/sHGJop76tgRYNLN/doZ6wafq4S1i/doZ6wafq4S1i.m3u8″,”transcript”:”Did you notice the Miami Heat pulled off a heist to get Giannis Anntokopo? The full haul that the Milwaukee Bucks got for the former two-time MVP sounds like a lot. Tyler Hero, Jae Haquez, Kahalel Ware, Casperis Yakohoni, three first-round picks, including the 13th pick in the 2026 draft, one pick swap, and a second-round pick for Giannis and Bobby Portis. From the Bucks’ perspective, none of these players are good enough to be your franchise cornerstone. The hometown kid hero is expiring contract that they either have to resign or trade for more assets down the road. The big piece of the pie here for the Bucks are the picks that they got. And while those picks have a chance to be good, it’s hard to bet against the team that just acquired Giannis and rarely, if ever, tanks. The Heat have had just 4 lottery picks in the last 15 seasons. Pat Riley and the Heat organization never throw the towel in, and so those picks, even that far away, might not have. As much value as they would if they were from a different organization. And to further that point, the Bucks don’t control their picks from 2027 to 2030, which makes this trade even more confusing for a team that just made a rebuilding move. Not having talent, not controlling your future picks, it’s a dangerous position to be in if you’re the Bucks, even if you feel like there are a lot of pieces in this trade. And for the Miami Heat, this is them definitively. choosing a direction. After trading Jimmy Butler, the Heat had been stuck in limbo in the middle of the Eastern Conference. And now with Bam Adebayo and Giannis, they have a core worthy of building a championship roster around. It’s not a perfect team. The Heat still need to re-sign Norm Powell this summer and try to add shooting and ball handling to a team that doesn’t have much money to work with. And while the addition of Portis gives them some assurance in the front court, their lack of depth is jarring, and in many ways, they The Heat will have to try and build out their roster from scratch, but they can do that with a player that can lead them to a championship at the center of it all. Giannis. Amid all the trade rumors, what has been lost is just how good of a player Giannis Antetokopo is when he’s healthy. He was top five in MVP voting from 2019 to 2025 and has averaged 30 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists for the last eight seasons. Those type of players don’t just grow on. Breeze. And while it’s true that the 31-year-old has dealt with injuries the last few seasons and is entering the second half of his career, betting on Giannis instead of toiling in mediocrity is well worth the risk for the Miami Heat. It won’t be easy. It might not even get them to that elusive championship, but the Miami Heat got substantially better after this trade by getting one of the best players in the world without giving up anything of true consequence. That is as big of a win as you can get.”,”ineligibleRegion”:[“BI”,”BY”,”CD”,”CF”,”CU”,”IQ”,”IR”,”KP”,”LB”,”LY”,”ML”,”NI”,”RU”,”SD”,”SO”,”SS”,”SY”,”UA”,”VE”,”YE”,”ZW”],”publisher”:{“@type”:”NewsMediaOrganization”,”@id”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/#publisher”,”name”:”The Athletic”,”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/”,”foundingDate”:”2016-01-25″,”logo”:{“@type”:”ImageObject”,”@id”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”url”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”contentUrl”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”creditText”:”The Athletic”,”height”:”60″,”width”:”435″},”publishingPrinciples”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/edit-guidelines/”,”sameAs”:”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Athletic”},”author”:[{“@type”:”Person”,”name”:”Esfandiar Baraheni”}]}