NBA Probing Controversial Gary Trent Jr. $64 Million Bucks Signing

The Milwaukee Bucks might be experiencing a roster shake up after News broke that the recent free agent contract that they signed Gary Trent Junior to is now being probed by the NBA per a report from ESPN’s Shawn’s Charia.

Trent Jr. was signed to a four-year, $64 million deal this off-season, one of the most recent moves the Bucks have made.

The heavy price tag immediately drew some concerns among executives around the league as he'd received a major pay increase and longer-term deal after having a severe down year, posting the second-lowest points and rebounds per game of his career.

What looked like a severe and inexplicable overpay by the Bucks at first has now taken a different tone, with the basis of the NBA's probe to be an investigation of possible salary cap circumvention.

Per a report from The Athletic, the suspicious circumstances that triggered the probe goes back to Trent Jr.'s previous contract, where he accepted a two-year contract from the Bucks for just over $3.5 million annually, despite interest from several other teams in free agency. 

The possibility proposed by the report is that Trent Jr. and the Bucks may have had some sort of backroom deal where Trent Jr. agreed to a cheaper contract to allow the Bucks more salary cap space to build a team around Giannis Antetokounmpo with the expectation that Trent Jr. would be rewarded with a larger contract later.

Now that Antetokounmpo was traded away, Trent Jr. was free to decline his player option for the 2026-27 season and sign this new deal.

With the probe in it 's early stages, it's not certain what exactly the consequences for Trent Jr. and the Bucks could be, if any at all, but the possibility of Trent Jr.'s contract being voided will likely be on the table.

The uncertainty that the probe introduces could put a halt on the rest of the offseason for the Bucks, though they admittedly don't have many moves left to make.

The biggest options left for the Bucks in free agency wold be to take a big swing for either Peyton Watson or Jonathan Kuminga, and there is the possibility of them making other trades with their newfound assets as well, but all of those moves may be stalled for the time being.

This is now the second ongoing salary cap circumvention investigation by the NBA, following the investigation of Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers.