The New York Knicks have already shoved their chips to the center of the table. Six first-round picks for Mikal Bridges. A roster reshaped around win-now talent. The message from Madison Square Garden has been loud enough: the future can wait.
Stephen A. Smith wants it louder.
On air, one of the sport’s most recognizable voices pushed the Knicks to take their aggression to its logical extreme: Giannis Antetokounmpo or bust.
“Let me tell you who you give up for Giannis — everybody, but Jaylen Brunson. I don’t give a damn if it’s the dance team, the cheerleaders, the concession workers,” Smith said, hammering home the point that nothing short of all-in should satisfy this front office.
He didn’t dance around it. In his view, a franchise that just shipped out six first-rounders for Bridges has forfeited the right to suddenly clutch its assets. New York, he argued, has already chosen a lane.
“Other than Brunson, everybody is available. What do you want? Do you want me to pay their salaries too?” Smith said. “We got to stop acting like this is some ordinary dude. The brother is 6’11 and will dunk on your parents if you let him.”
The hyperbole carried a simple truth: players like Giannis do not come around often, and when they do, you don’t haggle over the fine print.
Smith did, however, lace his enthusiasm with a warning for the current group. If this Knicks team can’t at least match last season’s postseason run with essentially the same core, sentimentality cannot stand in the way. In his eyes, failure to progress would flip the switch from patience to urgency, and the front office would have to move with cold, ruthless clarity.
Giannis, New York, and a Narrowing Window
Smith’s push lands at a moment when the rumor mill and reality are starting to overlap.
According to reporting from ESPN’s Shams Charania, Giannis informed the Milwaukee Bucks before the 2025-26 season that he was ready to move on. If the Bucks chose to trade him, there was only one destination he would accept: the New York Knicks.
That single preference changes everything.
League executives now believe Milwaukee missed its chance to squeeze maximum value from a Giannis deal. The once-unthinkable price for a two-time MVP has softened. The leverage has shifted.
New York, already deep into its asset reserves, suddenly finds itself in a strangely comfortable position. The Knicks don’t need to tear down the entire structure to make a credible offer. A framework built around Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and a couple of first-round pick swaps — without touching Karl-Anthony Towns — is viewed as the kind of package that could bring Milwaukee to the table.
That’s the power of a star who has already circled your city on the map. Giannis has identified New York as his preferred landing spot. That alone is the Knicks’ greatest asset in these talks, more valuable than any protected pick or pick swap.
The question now is not whether the Knicks can dream big. They already have. The question is whether Leon Rose and his front office are willing to finish what they started.
They’ve spent years maneuvering for this kind of moment, hoarding flexibility, then spending it aggressively on Bridges and high-level depth. Now the league’s most devastating two-way force is, at least in theory, within reach and willing to wear their jersey.
The window is open. How long it stays that way depends entirely on how fast the Knicks are prepared to climb through it.
