The Milwaukee Bucks were already set to endure some rough years after finally trading Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat over the summer. A new NBA investigation into potential cap circumvention to re-sign a role player from the late stages of the Antetokounmpo era threatens to make Milwaukee’s rebuild even more difficult.
The NBA quietly announced it was investigating the Bucks for cap circumvention over the summer tied to re-signing Gary Trent Jr. to a four-year, $64 million deal. The contract immediately raised eyebrows for multiple reasons: Trent was coming off arguably the worst season of his NBA career, cap space around the league had already dried up by the time the deal was announced on July 11, and no one in their right mind would have thought he was a $16 million per year player in this market.
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After the initial shock of the deal wore off, it was easy to connect the dots on what (probably) happened. A new story by The Athletic on Wednesday provides new information on the Bucks’ investigation in the wake of commissioner Adam Silver dropping the hammer on the Los Angeles Clippers earlier this month for circumventing the salary cap to sign Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers were stripped of five future first-round picks, and The Athletic says the Bucks’ punishment “could be equally severe, if not worse.”
The Bucks signed Trent to a minimum contract in the summer of 2024 when he was coming off a strong year with the Toronto Raptors where he averaged 13.7 points per game while knocking down 39.3 percent of his three-pointers on 6.4 attempts per game from deep. It felt like a very team-friendly signing at the time for a player who had just started 41 games, but it was also a nice opportunity for Trent to boost his standing league-wide playing for a Bucks team that was supposed to be very good with Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.
Trent was just okay for the Bucks in his first season with the team, and then got a modest pay increase up to $3.7 million for last season with Milwaukee still capped out. He had an even worse season last year, averaging 8.1 points with 36 percent shooting from three. Somehow, he landed a $64 million deal over the summer.
The most alarming thing about this signing is that Milwaukee has absolutely no need for Trent this season after trading Giannis. The Bucks have plenty of young guards they should want to feature ahead of Trent, including Ryan Rollins, Brayden Burries, and Kasparas Jakucionis. Milwaukee also has Tyler Herro, who should be slated for big minutes, and Kevin Porter Jr., who was better than Trent for the team last year.
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That’s five guards who should play before Trent. He’s the fourth highest paid player on the team this year!
Trent has always been a bit of a one-trick pony as a shooter. He doesn’t rebound, doesn’t force turnovers defensively, doesn’t get to the rim, and doesn’t playmake for others. The arrow has been trending down on his career since he signed with Milwaukee, and he was never even an average player to begin with. This graph tracking his overall play is via the Darko app.
The Bucks already have a huge anchor on their cap sheet for the next four years after waiving-and-stretching Damian Lillard to sign Myles Turner last year. Lillard’s deal takes up $22.5 million worth of cap room the next four seasons. Now Trent is on the books for $16 million per year even though Milwaukee has no use for him. This is absolutely no way to start a rebuild, when the Bucks could have been using their cap space to take on bad contracts in exchange for future draft picks. Instead, they gave Trent a bad contract for no reason.
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Well, there is one reason, probably. Trent’s market value was likely above contracts he signed with the Bucks the previous two seasons when they couldn’t offer him more. It sure seems like there was a wink-wink agreement to give him the deal he thought he deserved once they had his bird rights and the available cap space. It came home to roost this summer.
Trent’s agent is Rich Paul and Klutch Sports. There is no greater proof that Paul is the best agent in the NBA today, if not all of sports. Paul somehow got Brandon Ingram $40 million per year when it seemed like he didn’t have much of a market, and now he forced the Bucks into giving Trent this deal. Milwaukee probably did it because they didn’t want to damage their business relationship with Paul in the future. That was stupid!
By the letter of the law, the Bucks probably deserve to be punished here. Cap circumvention needs to be discouraged for other owners in the second-apron era, even when it obviously doesn’t work in Trent’s case. There’s one key difference between this case and Leonard’s with the Clippers, though. Fans and media truly believed the Clippers were guilty and deserving of punishment. Silver was going to seem soft as hell if he left them off the hook. The Bucks’ situation is already depressing enough after the Giannis trade. Stripping future first-round picks from Milwaukee now would feel like an impossible situation to come back from. Having Trent making $16 million per year for the next four years is enough punishment by itself.
Maybe I’m the one going soft now, but it would be pretty sad to see the Bucks get hammered over this — and I say this as someone who grew up as a Bulls fan, a Central Division rival of Milwaukee. Bucks fans are going to suffer enough in the coming years either way. After seeing the Clippers ruling, though, Milwaukee supporters should be very afraid of what Silver’s investigation finds.
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