NBA Probing Gary Trent Jr.'s $64M Contract with Bucks in Free Agency

The NBA is investigating the four-year, $64 million deal the Milwaukee Bucks and Gary Trent Jr. agreed to earlier this summer, per multiple reports.

That contract turned heads given such a significant outlay for a player who averaged 8.1 points and shot 36 percent from the field last season.

Because Trent went from playing on a $18.5 million salary in the 2023-24 season to playing on a $2.6 million salary in the 2024-25 season and a $3.6 million salary last season—all before signing an extension with a $16 million average annual value—there has been some speculation that he and the Bucks privately had a handshake agreement.

In essence, the theory goes that Trent took less money the past two seasons to help the Bucks manage their limited cap space with the understanding that the team would pay him a more lucrative extension this summer. Such an off-the-books agreement, however, would be cap circumvention and violate NBA rules.

Of course, the Bucks and Trent will likely make the argument that no wink-wink, nod-nod agreement was in place and that he simply was willing to take less money to play alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and potentially compete for a title. Now that the Bucks have his Bird rights and more cap space, the team decided to sign him to a deal closer to what his market value once was, hoping his mediocre 2025-26 campaign was an aberration.

And without proof to the contrary, that argument may ultimately hold up.

Cap circumvention has been quite the story around the NBA this summer, given the league's lengthy investigation into Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers. The stakes of that probe are significantly higher—a trade sending Leonard to the Toronto Raptors remains in limbo until the investigation concludes—but the Trent contract was nonetheless a head-scratcher.