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Outlooks for the 2026 NBA rookie class2dAndre SnellingsRamona ShelburneCloseRamona ShelburneESPN Senior WriterSenior writer for ESPN.comSpent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily NewsFollow on X and Jamal CollierCloseJamal CollierESPNJamal Collier is an NBA reporter at ESPN. Collier covers the Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls and the Midwest region of the NBA, including stories such as Minnesota's iconic jersey swap between Anthony Edwards and Justin Jefferson.

He has been at ESPN since Sept. 2021 and previously covered the Bulls for the Chicago Tribune. You can reach out to Jamal on Twitter @JamalCollier or via email Jamal.

Collier@espn.com.Multiple AuthorsJun 26, 2026, 07:00 AM ETEmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsA NOTE USUALLY goes out around 6 p.

m. in the Milwaukee Bucks' facility. There are no strings attached to it.

It's simply an offer from general manager Jon Horst to take a break from a long day of work and hoop for an hour or two downstairs on the team's practice court.Whatever business you're working on -- be it a report on a draft prospect, player development update or trading the best player in franchise history -- will be there for you when the game is over. So will dinner.

The idea is to reconnect with the game they all love.Once upon a time, Horst was a guard on the Rochester College basketball team that won two USCAA national championships. Over the past 10 days, before Horst and the Bucks finally traded Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat after a year of torturous debate, Horst and his staff got in two or three pickup games.

Sunday night was different. That was the night the two finalists for Antetokounmpo -- the Heat and Boston Celtics -- had submitted their final offers for the two-time MVP and been told to wait for an answer.It was also Father's Day.

Horst had a choice: keep everyone at the facility to debate the merits of both offers until consensus was reached or call it a night and make it home in time to see his two kids before bed.For a year, the Bucks had debated whether it was finally time to trade Antetokounmpo and, if so, what it would take for them to do so.Antetokounmpo had communicated to them on numerous occasions that he felt the time had come.

But it wasn't until this season ended with such a resounding whimper -- with Milwaukee winning just 32 games, the league launching an investigation into the team based on Antetokounmpo's accusations that the club wouldn't let him play, and missing the play-in tournament -- that the Bucks had finally accepted their fate and focused on the return they could get for him, rather than mortgaging the last of their future to convince him to return.Sunday night was the moment of truth.Boston's offer would return a star in Jaylen Brown, a former Finals MVP, around whom the Bucks could start rebuilding.

Miami's proposal included an All-Star, Milwaukee native Tyler Herro, a strong collection of young players and draft capital that would allow the Bucks more optionality to build their next team.One offer would lend itself to immediate competitiveness, but essentially restart the cycle they'd just exhausted with Antetokounmpo without replenishing the resources needed to build around Brown. The other was a full reset, with building materials.

Horst had canvassed the league for months, fielding offers and presenting them to his front office and ownership group, then getting feedback from Antetokounmpo's camp as to whether he'd be willing to extend his contract with those teams.At least four strong bids had died on the vine after Antetokounmpo rejected them, multiple sources with knowledge of them say.It was the last night of an exhausting, weekslong negotiation period to finalize the end of a protracted, awkward yearlong saga -- one that had consumed three teams, while the rest of the league waited for a resolution.

Either way, the ripple effects would be enormous.This final debate was too com