Milwaukee Bucks Turn the Page on Giannis as Brayden Burries Steals Vegas

The Milwaukee Bucks spent the back half of July doing something they have not had to do in more than a decade: talk about their future without Giannis Antetokounmpo in it. The two-time MVP is a member of the Miami Heat, the deal that sent him and Bobby Portis to South Florida was formally processed in early July, and the franchise that won a championship on July 20, 2021 arrived at the five-year anniversary of that night with exactly zero players from that roster still under contract. What replaced the era is a pile of guards, two lottery rookies, a stack of future picks, and, as of the middle of this month, a contract the league office has decided it wants to read a little more carefully.

The Milwaukee Bucks news that actually moved this week

Three things landed. Brayden Burries, the No. 10 pick, was named to the All-Summer League First Team on July 21 after four games in Las Vegas that read like a coronation. Tyler Herro spent the week telling anyone with a microphone that he wants to stay, which is not nothing when a player is entering the last year of his contract. And the NBA opened a look into Milwaukee's four-year, $64 million fully guaranteed deal with Gary Trent Jr.

Underneath all of it, the front office finally said the quiet part out loud. Talking to Keith Smith of Spotrac for a summer league notebook that circulated on July 23, a Bucks executive framed the reset this way: "It's different. We're in a different mindset for the first time in a long time. It's scary, but also exciting. We think the young players we've added to the roster are going to be core players for us moving forward." Rebuilding teams do not usually volunteer the word scary. Milwaukee has earned the right to be blunt.

What the Giannis trade actually returned

The framework was reported on June 23 and processed in July. Milwaukee sent Antetokounmpo and Portis to Miami and got back Herro, center Kel'el Ware, wing Jaime Jaquez Jr., guard Kasparas Jakucionis, the No. 13 pick that became Nate Ament, first-round picks in 2031 and 2033, a 2030 swap and a 2033 second-rounder. ESPN graded it B+ for the Bucks while noting the obvious counterpoint: Milwaukee held on through several trade windows where the return would have been richer.

Context matters here. The Bucks finished 32-50 last season, their first losing year since 2015-16 and their first missed postseason since 2016. Doc Rivers stepped away on April 13, a day after the season ended, and Taylor Jenkins was hired on April 23 after six seasons in Memphis. Milwaukee also owes its own first-rounders in 2027 and 2029 from the Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard deals, which is why the 2026 lottery haul mattered so much. The picks at 10 and 13 were the earliest selections the team had made since 2016, and they added Malique Lewis at No. 60.

Brayden Burries owned Las Vegas

Burries averaged 23.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists across four games on .500/.364/.667 shooting, with three total turnovers all summer. That last number is the one that got scouts talking. He closed his run with 27 points, four rebounds and five assists against Philadelphia, winning the game on an off-balance left-handed layup. Assistant coach Patrick St. Andrews summed up the appeal: "You can feel his maturity for his age, which is super impressive." Golden State's Yaxel Lendeborg took Summer League MVP after leading the Warriors to the title, but Burries was the most compelling non-champion in the building.

Ament was the slower burn. The No. 13 pick averaged 11.2 points over five games and needed a few outings to find the floor, though he finished strong with 23 points and six rebounds against Charlotte. Milwaukee sounded content with that. "We didn't ask him to change his style really at all," a team official told Spotrac. "He's a guy we think will improve a lot throughout his first couple of years in the league." Serbian forward Bogoljub Markovic, a 2025 draftee, also came over on a four-year standard contract on July 1 and looked the part in flashes, though he needs strength and range.

The Gary Trent Jr. contract and the league office

On July 16, reporting surfaced that the NBA was examining Milwaukee's new four-year, $64 million fully guaranteed agreement with Trent, signed days earlier using Early Bird rights. The concern is salary cap circumvention. Trent took a minimum deal in 2024 and a Non-Bird raise in 2025 before this one, and his 2025-26 production was modest: 8.1 points in 21.2 minutes across 65 games on 38.7 percent shooting and 36.0 percent from three, with multiple healthy scratches down the stretch. If the league finds an unwritten promise underpinning the earlier discounts, fines or draft compensation are on the table. Milwaukee's defense is straightforward enough: Trent left real money on the table to chase a title alongside Antetokounmpo, and this is the settling of that account. Nothing has been decided, and the Bucks have not been accused of anything.

What the Milwaukee Bucks roster looks like now

Crowded, young in spots and heavily backcourt-tilted. Ryan Rollins is the most interesting returning piece: he averaged 17.3 points, 5.6 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals on 47.2 percent shooting and 40.6 percent from three while starting 67 of 74 games, and Bleacher Report's Zach Buckley slotted him third on a list of the league's most underrated players. Jaquez arrives off a 15.4-point, 5.0-rebound, 4.7-assist season on 50.7 percent shooting, mostly as a reserve. Myles Turner anchors the middle with Ware behind him, Kyle Kuzma and A.J. Green fill out the wings, Kevin Porter Jr. and Jakucionis crowd the guard rotation further, and Ousmane Dieng re-signed on a multiyear deal in early July. Caris LeVert also came aboard via a multi-team trade on July 8.

Add it up and Milwaukee had 16 standard contracts before that LeVert deal and before Trent re-signed, which means a genuine roster crunch between now and camp. Teams can carry extra bodies through the summer, but the standard roster has to be at 15 by opening night. Kuzma, veteran guard Gary Harris and Green are the names most often floated as expiring salary that could get moved, and Milwaukee was listed by HoopsHype's Michael Scotto on July 22 among clubs poking around a Jonathan Kuminga sign-and-trade.

Extensions and the calendar ahead

Two extension conversations are live. Herro is entering the final season of the four-year, $120 million deal he signed in Miami and will make roughly $33 million. Jaquez is in the last year of his rookie contract. The Bucks want both done before the season. "That's something we'll talk about with his reps," the team said of Herro. "We'd love to get something done, provided it makes sense for both Tyler and us. For Jaime, it's the same thing." Herro, a Milwaukee-area kid, has not been coy: "I'm super excited to be in Milwaukee. Fresh start for everyone," he said, adding, "I'm hoping I'm staying here." He also conceded he saw the trade coming: "If any summer, it was going to be this summer."

Antetokounmpo, for his part, has not closed the door. On a podcast appearance that surfaced July 24, he said he hopes to return to Milwaukee "if they'll have me" once his Heat chapter ends. That is a long way off and worth exactly what such statements usually are, but Bucks fans will take it.

• Roster has to be trimmed to 15 standard contracts before opening night
• Training camp opens in late September, with media day immediately before
• Preseason follows in early October; the 2026-27 regular season tips off in October
• Extension talks with Herro and Jaquez expected to run into camp

Milwaukee Bucks news for the rest of the summer is likely to be about subtraction rather than addition: a salary dump, a guard shipped out, maybe a resolution on Trent. But the outline is real for the first time since 2013. There is a guard in Rollins who looks like a starter, a rookie in Burries who looked like the best non-champion in Las Vegas, a lottery forward in Ament with real runway, and picks in 2031 and 2033 that give the front office something to trade with. Nobody in Milwaukee is pretending this is fun. They are just, finally, pointed somewhere.