The NBA is investigating a four-year, $64 million contract between Gary Trent Jr. and the Milwaukee Bucks over potential salary cap circumvention. League investigators are examining whether early team-friendly deals were part of an agreement to delay his major pay raise.
The Four-Year Deal Under League Scrutiny
The Milwaukee Bucks are facing a formal inquiry from the NBA regarding a four-year, $64 million contract extension signed by Gary Trent Jr., according to reporting from ESPN. League officials launched the probe after the agreement was officially submitted in July, examining whether the franchise bypassed salary cap restrictions.
When the Milwaukee Bucks agreed to sign Gary Trent Jr. to a four-year, $64 million deal in July, red flags went up all around the league’s office. Days later, reports emerged suggesting the NBA was looking into the signing, though details of the league’s probe were scarce. The league apparently found enough that it decided to launch a full-on investigation, according to The Athletic.
Trent is set to earn an average of over $15 million the next four years. That financial commitment arrives after a season in which the veteran averaged just 8.1 points per game, his lowest scoring output since his rookie season. Joe Vardon of The Athletic writes that the fully guaranteed contract appeared to be far above the market value for a player coming off a down year in which he averaged 8.1 points, 1.2 assists, and 1.0 rebounds per game on 38.7% shooting.
How the Team-Friendly Contracts Sparked Suspicion
The investigation centers on a pattern of contracts that allowed Milwaukee to retain Trent below market value in previous seasons. Trent signed with the Bucks for the veteran’s minimum in 2024 and then accepted a small raise to $3.7MM via Non-Bird rights in 2025 on the heels of a productive first season with the team. Trent then declined his final-year option to become a free agent again.
According to Vardon, rival executives believe the fact that the agreement wasn’t reached until July 11, when league-wide cap space and roster spots had become scarce, was among the reasons why the deal drew the NBA’s attention. If the Bucks had reached a similar agreement in June or early July, it still would have been criticized but may have simply been viewed as a misread of the market, those execs suggested to The Athletic. Investigators are exploring whether handshake agreements promised Trent a larger payday once the club had the ability to offer more money using his Early Bird rights.
An NBA spokesperson confirmed that the league’s investigation into the Bucks’ four-year, $64MM deal with Gary Trent Jr. is ongoing but declined to answer any further questions, writes Joe Vardon. When reached for comment by The Athletic, the NBA, Bucks and Trent’s agency — Klutch Sports — all declined comment. Both the Bucks and Klutch Sports Group (Trent’s agency) are cooperating with the NBA. The law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz would typically be the league’s choice to conduct an independent investigation into this sort of matter, but Wachtell was already in the midst of another cap-circumvention probe this summer, having finally wrapped up a year-long investigation into the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard earlier this month. So, according to Vardon, the NBA tabbed the national investigations law firm Hecker Fink to look into Trent’s deal with Milwaukee.
Precedent and Potential Penalties From Prior Cases
This scrutiny follows the league’s high-profile investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard. While both teams were accused of the same violation, their methods for allegedly circumventing the salary cap differ. In the Clippers’ case, the team was accused of using a team sponsor to funnel additional funds to Leonard as a way to get around NBA rules, whereas accusations surrounding the Bucks are far more straight forward. The NBA finally closed the book on its Kawhi Leonard investigation by fining the Clippers $30 million, stripping them of five first-round picks, and suspended owner Steve Ballmer for a year.
That pattern of accepting team-friendly deals immediately before a much larger payday is exactly the profile the league’s Article 13 circumvention rules are designed to catch. It states that circumvention may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence… that a Player Contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained
absent a prior agreement.
The closest historical comparison is the 2000 Joe Smith case. The league determined the Minnesota Timberwolves had secretly agreed to below-market deals with Smith in exchange for a promised future contract, a ruling that cost Minnesota five first-round picks, a fine, and the voiding of Smith’s contract, giving real weight to what Milwaukee could be facing if investigators find a similar arrangement here.
Worth a look
