Giannis Antetokounmpo’s name is closely associated with the Milwaukee Bucks. The Nigerian-Greek basketball phenom has not played for any other franchise since the Bucks picked him 15th in the 2013 NBA Draft.
The Antetokounmpo-led Bucks ended the franchise’s 50-year drought by winning the NBA championship in 2021. The “Greek Freak” was named Finals MVP after earning back-to-back regular season MVP honors the previous two years.
Interestingly, there was a chance the 30-year-old wouldn’t have been drafted by the Bucks. The Dallas Mavericks once considered acquiring him. Had they done so, the Mavericks likely wouldn’t have drafted Luka Dončić in the 2018 NBA Draft.
Mark Cuban Shares How Dallas Mavericks Almost Picked Giannis Antetokounmpo
The Dallas Mavericks began playing in the NBA in the 1980-81 season. Although they were playoff contenders in the early and mid-1980s, the Mavericks struggled for much of the rest of the 20th century.
The arrival of Mark Cuban as owner in 2000 changed their fortunes, turning them into perennial playoff contenders. Before Cuban’s arrival, the Mavericks had drafted Dirk Nowitzki with the No. 9 pick in 1998.
Nowitzki led the Mavericks to their first NBA Finals appearance in 2006, where they lost to the Dwyane Wade-led Miami Heat. Five years later, the German power forward got his revenge against a much stronger Heat squad featuring Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh. To date, the 2011 NBA championship remains the only one in Mavericks history.
After the 2011 title, Cuban wanted to help Nowitzki win another championship. Two years later, Cuban and other Mavericks executives had different suggestions for the 2013 NBA Draft. Had Cuban followed their advice, they might have taken Antetokounmpo, and likely never ended up with Dončić in 2018.
Cuban shared the story during an appearance on the “Club Shay Shay” podcast last year.
“We had Dirk, and we had just won the championship two years ago. Some of our people wanted to go for Giannis. I wanted to trade down, and we ended up getting Shane Larkin because we needed that cap room to try to go out and sign somebody to propel Dirk,” Cuban said.
“We wanted to go for that gold again. It is just the way it worked out, and had we gotten Giannis, we would have never got Luka,” he added.
The Mavericks selected Trae Young with the fifth pick in 2018 and traded him to the Hawks, who had taken Dončić third overall. That pick came after a rough 2017-18 season, when Dallas won only 28 games.
Had they taken Antetokounmpo in 2013, the Mavericks likely would’ve been more competitive and ended up with a worse (lower) pick. Antetokounmpo had already become an All-Star by then with Milwaukee.
Since Nowitzki was still a star in 2013, the Mavericks might have paired him with Antetokounmpo and built a contending roster around the two. The front office likely wouldn’t have prioritized rebuilding, which may have meant passing on Dončić altogether.
In 2017, Antetokounmpo signed a $100 million extension with the Bucks. Had Dallas drafted and extended him, their cap space would’ve been tighter, making it tougher to trade for big contracts. Instead, they likely would’ve focused on signing veteran role players.
Dončić quickly took over as the face of the franchise after Nowitzki retired. He won Rookie of the Year in 2019 and made five straight All-Star and All-NBA First Team appearances from 2020 to 2024.
Ironically, the Mavericks traded Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of the 2025 regular season in what’s widely considered the most shocking trade in NBA history.
