Editor’s note: On June 22, 2026, the Milwaukee Bucks agreed to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat, ending his 13-year tenure with the franchise.MILWAUKEE (somewhere in my memories) — Throughout my early childhood in Milwaukee, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar loomed large.Kareem played for my hometown Bucks, and he was everywhere: on the front page of our two sports sections, on the cover of magazines, on ABC’s nationally televised games and later on CBS hitting “a big pressure shot” at Boston Garden against the Celtics in Game 6 of the 1974 NBA Finals.But for me and my wild imagination, there was no more symbolic representation of Kareem’s outsized presence than a brilliant electric sign festooned with flashing bulbs and neon for a electronics store near the old Capitol Court mall on Milwaukee’s near Northwest side: The sign was wide at the top, narrowed in the middle, and the middle shifted to one side, right or left depending on how you approached it. The bottom of the sign narrowed into an arrow pointing to the store.For that establishment, it was a glowing acknowledgment that it was ready for your business. For me, it looked like a net at Milwaukee Arena after Kareem swished a skyhook from the baseline.“Yeah, I can see that,” my dad said after I mentioned it once as we drove past.You can see it, too. It looked like this net on this Sports Illustrated cover.That I still have that memory from half a century ago is a stark reminder of greatness: Stars will make occasional impressions, but superstars imprint themselves deep in your memories and deep in your imagination.This is why the constant speculation surrounding Giannis Antetokounmpo worries Bucks fans. They know what they have with Giannis: a singular and single-named superstar who has already delivered an NBA title — the franchise’s first since … Kareem.So, I proffer this advice to Bucks: Hold on to the Greek Freak for dear life. Do not let him go. Do not trade him to the highest bidder. I don’t care if the Dallas Mavericks throw in the No. 1 pick, more draft picks and Jerry World (scratch that; the Green Bay Packers already own AT&T Stadium). Or the Rockets offer Alperen Şengün, more draft picks and NASA Mission Control. Or the San Antonio Spurs give up this year’s second pick, Stephon Castle, more draft picks and The Alamo. For Bucks fans, Giannis is their historic landmark.Do something radical and resist the urge to send the greatest player in franchise history to another NBA team because you think a surfeit of draft picks and a couple of rebuilding seasons is better in the long term.If the Bucks trade Giannis, the franchise could wander through an interminable, title-less winter for decades.How do Bucks fans know this? They have lived it already. Making them go through it again could be too much to ask.The circumstances surrounding Kareem then and Giannis now are different, but there are parallels.For his six seasons in Milwaukee, Kareem had not only established himself as the best Buck ever but also cemented his place as one of the greatest players ever, college or pro.He had already won three consecutive NCAA titles at UCLA. He was the surest of sure things. How sure? Watch then-Suns GM Jerry Colangelo’s soul leave his body when Phoenix loses the coin flip that gave Milwaukee the right to the No. 1 pick in the 1969 NBA Draft. He knew that moment was a franchise- and NBA-defining event.Kareem left an indelible imprint on that era’s Bucks fans because of his burgeoning professional resume. He won Rookie of the Year in 1970, NBA Finals MVP in 1971, when Milwaukee swept the Baltimore Bullets as the Bucks went from an expansion team in 1968 to NBA champs in three years — the fastest ascension to the mountaintop in any sport’s history. He was named NBA MVP in ’71, ’72 and ’74. He led the NBA in scoring in ’71 and ’72 and carried the Bucks to another NBA Finals in 1974.But one year after that second finals appearance, he was gone. Abdul-Jabbar found Milwaukee socially stifling, as then-Bucks GM and now Naismith Hall of Famer Wayne Embry told the Los Angeles Times in 1987.“We asked Kareem if there was dissatisfaction with us and he said, no, he just wanted to be traded from Milwaukee,” Embry said. “He said his lifestyle and the lifestyle in Milwaukee were not compatible.”While that hurt Milwaukeeans at the time, it was understandable given that Kareem grew up in New York and went to college at UCLA. So Kareem asked out and noted that he wouldn’t sign another contract in Milwaukee. Big-market sharks, the Lakers and the Knicks — “(The Knicks) asked us,” Embry disclosed to The New York Times, “what it would require for them to get Kareem in a trade” — began circling in Lake Michigan. Kareem had forced the Bucks’ hand.On June 16, 1975, that hand reached out to the Los Angeles Lakers.“In a deal that reshapes the face and possibly the future of pro basketball,” Steve Cady wrote in The New York Times, “the Milwaukee Bucks traded Kareem Abdul‐Jabbar yesterday to the Los Angeles Lakers.”