Milwaukee Bucks general manager Jon Horst spoke to reporters for the first time on Wednesday about the decision to trade Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat, and his final answer of the 30-minute session provided the most incisive look into the franchise-altering decision.“This is hard,” Horst said. “Call it what it is. Giannis is one of the greatest players in NBA history. Top 75 of all time. Greatest player in franchise history. He’s an NBA champion in Milwaukee. All the things that we’ve talked about and that you all know, he is not with us anymore.“So, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and we championed balance and getting back foundational players that we believed in, draft capital that we thought we could utilize and capitalize on, either by drafting at some point or by using in future transactions and flexibility to make decisions. The Miami opportunity presented us with the best path in totality, and that’s why we did the deal.”When the GM spoke at the introductory news conference for new Bucks head coach Taylor Jenkins on May 6, he emphasized that the team planned to work through its options along two parallel paths — one in which the team traded Antetokounmpo, one in which they kept Antetokounmpo — and attempt to figure out the best course of action.Giannis is headed to Miami. What will be his legacy in Milwaukee?Eric Nehm and Johnny SweetThat was the same sentiment he expressed in the final week of the regular season in April, and a message that Bucks co-governor Jimmy Haslam echoed following Jenkins’ introduction, with one significant addition: The team would choose a path before the NBA Draft.That led to the Bucks sending Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis to the Miami Heat for Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kasparas Jakučionis, the No. 13 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft (which Milwaukee used to select Nate Ament), two additional first-round picks, a first-round pick swap and a second-round pick.While the Bucks ultimately decided to trade Antetokounmpo, Horst said Wednesday that the team truly considered both paths and looked at how they might rebuild a contender around Antetokounmpo before moving the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.“In most cases, for most of the last decade, there wasn’t a parallel path of ‘Hey, if we trade Giannis, it’s this,’ and ‘If we keep Giannis, it’s this.’” Horst said. “It was just, ‘We’re going to maximize this with Giannis.’ And so, you’d end up trying to find the best opportunity and make the most of it, and hopefully it works.“This time around, we had something sincerely to compare those options to, and clearly, we made the decision what we thought was best for us. But again, there’s a human side of this and a respect factor of Giannis. And what’s best for Giannis was to execute the Miami trade. It was different than years past, in that there were truly paralleling paths to really consider against just the all in (with Antetokounmpo), and what does it look like.”As Horst said, the Bucks had spent the last decade doing everything they could to put the team, led by Antetokounmpo, in the best position to contend for a championship at the start of each season. That included making bold decisions like trading packages of first-round picks for a new starting point guard (Jrue Holiday and Damian Lillard) on two separate occasions, and then waiving and stretching Lillard’s contract after he tore his Achilles tendon to sign Myles Turner.