Davion Mitchell has decided the fastest way to get to know his new co-star is to close the distance himself — all 6,000 miles of it.
The Miami Heat guard revealed Friday in Las Vegas that he will travel to Greece later this summer to train with Giannis Antetokounmpo
“I’ll pull up there, and we’re going to work out,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to be fun.”
The trip was Mitchell’s idea, and he didn’t wait for an introduction through the team. The 27-year-old simply reached out the moment the blockbuster became real.
“I got his number and I texted him,” Mitchell said. “And now in the middle of the summer, I’m going to Greece.”
The news came packaged with a second development that should have Heat fans just as intrigued. Mitchell told reporters he has shed “a lot of weight” this offseason and is now throwing down dunks in his workouts.
“I’m just moving a lot faster, more fluid, and I feel more comfortable,” Mitchell said.
For a franchise that just bet its next half-decade on Antetokounmpo, a self-starting point guard slimming down and booking flights to Athens in the second week of July is exactly the kind of early signal the front office wanted to see.
The guard the Bucks refused to take
There is a layer of irony to Mitchell being the first Heat player to invest sweat equity in the Antetokounmpo partnership, because less than three weeks ago he was nearly the price of it. According to Winderman, an earlier framework of Miami’s offer to Milwaukee would have sent Mitchell out in the deal, with the Bucks instead insisting on rookie Kasparas Jakucionis and the long-term cost control of his first contract.
The salary difference was not trivial. Winderman reported that Jakucionis will earn $3.8 million next season against Mitchell’s $12.4 million, and that had Milwaukee accepted the original construct, the math might have spared Miami the first-apron hard cap it now operates under. Instead the Bucks took the younger guard, and the Heat kept the veteran while absorbing the roster-building restrictions that came with the trade.
Which made Friday’s schedule almost too neat. Hours after the Greece news broke, the Heat open Vegas Summer League play against Milwaukee — and against Jakucionis himself, the guard the Bucks demanded in Mitchell’s place. Miami’s side of that exchange spent the morning explaining how he plans to spend his summer building chemistry with the superstar the trade delivered.
Why the trip matters for Miami’s backcourt
The Heat’s guard rotation looks nothing like it did in April. Tyler Herro went to Milwaukee as the headline outgoing piece of the Antetokounmpo package, also included Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Jakucionis and a haul of draft capital.
Norman Powell then departed for the Chicago Bulls in free agency, squeezed out by the same hard cap. That leaves Mitchell as the presumptive lead guard on opening night, and the connective tissue between Antetokounmpo, Bam Adebayo and everyone else.
He earned the job on merit before the trade ever happened. Mitchell averaged 9.3 points, 6.5 assists and 2.7 rebounds per game across 70 appearances in 2025-26, shooting 49.0 percent from the field and 39.5 percent from 3-point range, per Basketball-Reference. The assist figure was a career high, and the shooting efficiency continued the leap he first flashed after arriving in Miami at the 2025 trade deadline.
The defensive projection is where the pairing gets exciting. In Yahoo! Sports’ breakdown of the trade, Kelly Iko forecast Miami as a potential top-five defense, grouping Mitchell’s relentless ball pressure with Andrew Wiggins’ length and the twin rim deterrence of Antetokounmpo and Adebayo. A point guard nicknamed “Off-Night” hounding the ball while two All-Defensive-caliber bigs patrol behind him is the kind of construction Erik Spoelstra has spent years trying to assemble.
Chemistry is the missing ingredient, and it is the one Mitchell is flying overseas to address. Miami lost three rotation regulars in the trade, and the roster still carries an obvious hole behind Adebayo in the middle. The sooner the returning core develops a shared language with its new franchise player, the less those seams show in October.
A contract year with everything on the line
There is also a personal calculation underneath the goodwill, and Mitchell would be forgiven for making it. He is entering the final season of the two-year, $24 million deal he signed last July, while only 2026-27 remains on the contract. A hard-capped team has limited avenues to replace a starting point guard, which gives Mitchell genuine leverage if the fit with Antetokounmpo works — and gives the Heat every incentive to hope the Greece trip pays off on both ends.
The weight loss fits the same picture. A quicker, more explosive Mitchell attacking closeouts created by Antetokounmpo’s gravity is a better player than the one who ran Miami’s offense last season, and a better-paid one next summer.
None of that diminishes the gesture; it just means the incentives of player and franchise are pointed in exactly the same direction, which is usually when partnerships take.
What comes next
Mitchell said the trip will come in the middle of the summer, giving the two guards-and-a-Freak experiment its first reps months before training camp. Antetokounmpo, who traditionally spends his offseason back home in Greece, will eventually have business of his own to settle in Miami: Winderman reported he is locked in at $58.4 million for the coming season and becomes eligible for a four-year extension worth roughly $275 million.
The Heat gave up a franchise cornerstone’s worth of talent and picks to get their superstar. It says something about the team they kept that the first move of the new era wasn’t made by the front office at all — it was a point guard asking for a phone number and buying a plane ticket.
