Trade speculation has surrounded Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks for weeks now, ever since a report came out that the former MVP was talking to the team about his future with the franchise.

The situation hasn't been helped by a lack of communication from the man himself. Not long after the report emerged, Antetokounmpo went down with a calf strain and didn't speak to reporters again until Thursday.

There was plenty to talk about with the Bucks sitting at 11-16, but the trade rumors were unavoidable. In response to one question about the reported conversations, Antetokounmpo denied any role in the talks and indicated his agent, Alex Saratsis, was handling them without his input:

"If my agent is talking to the Bucks about it, he is his own person. He can have any conversation he wants about it. At the end of the day, I don't work for my agent, my agent works for me. There's going to be conversations that are going to be made between him and the Bucks and him and his other players and him and other teams and other GMs, executives around the league. 

"It's something that you can't control. But at the end of the day, I personally have not had the conversation with the Bucks."

That's an interesting way to describe a player-agent relationship, as an agent unilaterally approaching a team about his client's future is not something you see every day. It is the basic definition of an agent to act on a player's wishes, so Saratsis has to know at least something about what Antetokounmpo is seeking if he's talking with the Bucks. 

When pressed on the claim, Antetokounmpo further denied any control in the matters and complained about his wife's obsession with Target in the process:

"I tell my wife all the time, I say, 'Stop shopping at Target.' Every day she wakes up, she's like. 'I'm going to Target.' I'm like, 'Babe, stop. You're addicted to Target.' Every day. Today, she went to Target. I can't control — she's a grown-ass woman. I can't control what she does. 

"So the same thing with my agent. I can't control the conversations they're going to have. I can't control the people that approach them. At the same time, I can't control teams that approach the Bucks."

Antetokounmpo also summarized his communications with his agent as basically non-existent during the season, which, again, would make him a rarity among NBA players:

"A lot of people have great relationships with their agents. With me, I do have a good relationship with my agent, but they know once the season starts, you don't call my phone. You don't talk to me about endorsement deals. You don't talk to me about basketball. You never played the game. Let me take care of my job, you take care of your job."

Antetokounmpo hasn't played since Dec. 3 and confirmed his injury was a soleus strain, which he also suffered in the 2023-24 season. He said the timeline for return remains 4-to-6 weeks, which would land his return sometime in January. However, he also added that he would play Thursday if it were a Game 7.

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The Bucks have gone 1-3 without Antetokounmpo and Milwaukee has seven more games remaining in December alone. The team is already sitting at 11th in the Eastern Conference and needs him as much as ever in its post-Damian Lillard era.

There has been confusion throughout all this. The Bucks have firmly denied any such conversations taking place, but Antetokounmpo just indicated his agent was talking to them about something. Antetokounmpo was reported last week to have spoken with his teammates about focusing on winning now, but two of his teammates said they heard no such talk.

The Bucks have become conspicuously scarce on Antetokounmpo's social media, which he explained as an attempt to become more private:

"The other day, I was approached about, 'Hey, man, you deleted all the Bucks stuff from your socials.' I'm like, 'Bro.' The younger generation, they just pay attention so much to — what does that mean? What is me deleting the Bucks stuff from my social media platforms? What does that mean? I'm not going to show up to work? I don't understand. I feel like people give so much attention to that.

"First of all, I did not delete the Bucks stuff. My Jimmy Paschke shirt, championship trophy is there. The NBA Cup trophy is there. All the moments that mean something to me is there, but I want to be more private moving forward, as much as I can. I want to be a little more private, that's how I protect my family."

If Antetokounmpo is indeed open to a trade, there will be no shortage of suitors. If not, the easiest way to end any such talk is for the Bucks to start performing like contenders.