The noted laureate DJ Khaled once said ‘They don’t want you to be great!’ ‘They don’t want you to win!’ And it appears that league executives were none too pleased about the sign-and-trade the Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings made four days before they were supposed to. The league put in new tampering rules before last season, and many are crying foul that the Bucks and Kings broke those with Bogdan Bogdanovic. The trade is off, for now, but it appears Bogdan wants to play in Milwaukee with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Why whoever leaked this should have held their water, why this makes the league mad, and ultimately you can’t stop what a player wants.

David @Lockedonsports "The craziest story of the day is the Bogdan Bogdanovic trade not going through…"@chadfordinsider "This is the biggest smokescreen… Adam Silver may void this trade and maybe even take away a first round pick"@lockedonkings @lockedonbucks pic.twitter.com/ME6us68nF6

— Locked On NBA (@LockedOnNBAPods) November 19, 2020

Chad Ford, of the Locked In Network, is plugged in and knows his stuff. This does not surprise me in regards to the tampering fines. They’re excessive but the league is hellbent on protecting their reputation that this doesn’t happen all the time. It is blatant and obvious the Bucks and Kings had a done deal. No one expected this to be announced on Monday. Someone could not contain themselves the night of the Jrue Holiday deal and they let the cat out of the bag. When they did that, it sent off a lot of angry text messages and bitching to Adam Silver. The league is full of a fucking tattletales.

Now mind you, the Bucks do not run to the league when things get leaked about Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future. When you have national media members who are doing bidding for some teams. That never gets brought up. Or the fact that reporters wondered out loud if the bubble would lead to more tampering with Giannis and company. The double standard is disappointing, to say the least, but again, it’s hard for me to feel bad for the Bucks. All they had to do is shut the fuck up and not say a word until Friday night. Even on draft night where there were sign-and-trade rumors for Danillo Gallinari, the same could have been done with Bogdan.

Here is Brian Windhorst’s full breakdown of the Bogdan Bogdanovic situation: pic.twitter.com/0f1yX8o6xB

— Gabe Stoltz (@Stoltzy3) November 19, 2020

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst is a guy you listen to NBA news. Windhorst confirming the league executive furor then adding the wrinkle that Giannis and Bogdan are on board with this move. That is a big, big nugget. If Giannis and Bogi are already on the same page this makes you feel confident that a deal is going to get done. It will have to look slightly different though. Maybe they sign-and-trade Sterling Brown and add him to the deal. Or they throw in one of their second-rounders. Jon Horst will likely get creative here. My guess is once a big move happens, the Bucks and Kings will try to sneak this in there.

If Bogdan goes elsewhere, it is one of the biggest failures in recent Wisconsin sports memory. I’ve never bought into the ‘Don’t trust the Bucks’ mantra, but I will start to buy stock in it if this doesn’t happen.

Charlie.