The NBA’s review of Gary Trent Jr.’s new Bucks contract is still moving, and the league isn’t saying much beyond that.
An NBA spokesperson confirmed the investigation into Milwaukee’s four-year, $64MM deal with Trent is ongoing, but declined to answer additional questions, according to Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Vardon reports that the Bucks and Klutch Sports Group, Trent’s agency, are both cooperating with the league.
The NBA has brought in Hecker Fink to handle the investigation, Vardon writes. Under normal circumstances, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz would be the league’s go-to firm for this type of probe, but Wachtell was already tied up with another cap-circumvention case this summer. That firm recently finished a year-long investigation into the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard.
The contract itself raised eyebrows almost immediately. Word first surfaced in July, just after Trent officially re-signed in Milwaukee, that the league was looking into the fully guaranteed deal. The attention came because the money appeared to be well beyond the market for a player who had just come off a down season, one in which he averaged 8.1 points, 1.2 assists, and 1.0 rebounds per game while shooting 38.7%.
Trent had signed with the Bucks for the veteran’s minimum in 2024, then took a modest bump to $3.7MM through Non-Bird rights in 2025 after a strong first season with the team. That made this summer’s agreement look even more striking, and it sparked speculation that Trent had accepted those earlier team-friendly contracts with an understanding that Milwaukee would pay him once it could use his Early Bird rights to offer more.
Rival executives told Vardon they think the timing matters, too. The deal was not reached until July 11, when cap space and roster spots around the league had already dried up. If Milwaukee had locked in a similar arrangement in June or early July, those execs suggested, it still would have drawn criticism but might have been viewed more as a simple misread of the market than a cap-circumvention issue.
The Bucks, for their part, have told rival teams they believe Trent’s new contract matches his value. Milwaukee has also maintained that it viewed him as roughly a $15MM-per-year player on the open market, even though he took less money in his first two seasons with the team, Vardon writes.
If the league finds evidence of cap circumvention, the consequences could be severe. The NBA hit the Clippers hard for violating those rules, taking away five first-round picks, fining the team $30MM, and suspending several top executives, including owner Steve Ballmer. That case involved alleged no-show endorsement arrangements for Leonard, so it is not the same situation, but Vardon notes the Bucks could still face a heavy penalty if Hecker Fink uncovers proof of wrongdoing.
The closest historical comparison would be the Timberwolves’ illegal deal with Joe Smith in 1999. That episode led to Smith’s contract being voided and Minnesota losing five first-round picks, though two were later returned. In that case, a legal fight between Smith’s two agents exposed a secret understanding between the team and the player, who had agreed to take below-market one-year deals until the Wolves held his Bird rights and could hand him a richer long-term contract.
There is still no word on when the Trent investigation might be finished.
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