Giannis Antetokounmpo makes his feelings on Celtics fans clear amidst trade rumors

For the conglomerate of Boston Celtics fans who haven’t taken their eyes off of Giannis Antetokounmpo in this young offseason, boy, do we have breaking news for you. Giannis popped into Marlon Lundgren Garcia’s Twitch stream on Friday and chatted hoops with the famous streamer.

When asked if the New York Knicks had the most passionate fans, Antetokounmpo rejected the idea and instead pointed to the Celtics (and Philadelphia 76ers).

“I feel like the best arena was Boston. Boston and Philly,” he told Marlon. “That was a regular [season] game. Playoffs, everybody goes crazy. Everybody goes crazy in the playoffs. But regular games, Boston, they’re passionate.”

Of course, with the swirling rumors surrounding Giannis’s future with the Milwaukee Bucks and consistent presence of Boston in said rumors, it’s hard not to read into this -- at least to some degree.

Giannis confirms what we at least thought we knew

At face value, the two-time MVP is publicly praising the Celtics and their fans. His willingness to do so effectively confirms the rumors/reports from Bill Simmons and Marc Stein that Antetokounmpo would be interested in playing beneath the 18 banners at TD Garden.

It does matter whether or not he’d actually wanted to be traded to Boston because he only has one year remaining on his current contract. If he gets dealt to a team that he doesn’t want to play for, Giannis can easily let his deal expire and become a free agent next summer.

Teams, including the Cs, are well aware of that possibility and likely wouldn’t be willing to part with the necessary assets to get a trade done if they felt Giannis was a flight risk. Boston should at least feel the stability to go all-in if that’s what they decide they want to do.

They could simply just not want to make major changes at the top of the roster, too.

It's important to remember that Giannis loves attention and trolling fans on the internet

Now, it’d be foolish to ignore the fact that Antetokounmpo might quite literally be the biggest troll on the planet (he and Kevin Durant are the same height, but Giannis outweighs KD by three pounds, per basketball reference). There’s nothing that this man enjoys doing in the offseason more than riling up NBA fans on the internet.

He did a (now deleted) question and answer on Twitter/X last summer where he said New York was his favorite city to play in on the road.

It just so happens that the Knicks were rumored to have interest in the 2021 NBA Finals MVP at the time.

Giannis also shared that he loves Miami, another NBA city he’s consistently linked to, since the Heat are going to trade for everyone every summer, according to their fans.

All of this is to say that while it's exciting and a step in the right direction for Giannis to tip his cap to Celtics fans, that his comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Sure, it’s better than if he was like, “man, I can’t stand those fans, they’re horrible, and I hate playing there.”

More than just how great the fans are goes into decision-making here too. How is the fit? Is the team set up to succeed post blockbuster trade? Those kinds of things.

For now, all we can do is keep scrolling and taking the bait at every opportunity.

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