The NBA’s latest salary-cap inquiry has shifted from Los Angeles to Milwaukee, and the stakes around Gary Trent Jr.’s new contract are drawing plenty of attention.
After the league wrapped up its investigation into the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, another probe remains active, this one focused on whether the Bucks crossed the line with Trent. The deal at the center of it is the four-year contract worth around $64 million that Trent signed this offseason. Before landing that agreement, he had been playing on a minimum contract with Milwaukee.
Brian Windhorst of ESPN said the situation has become a regular topic of discussion around the league, and he noted that the Trent investigation is being handled by a different law firm than the Clippers case. On a recent episode of ‘The Hoop Collective,’ Windhorst said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen in that investigation.
I will tell you that it is a frequent conversation as I talk with people around the league … it is being done by a different law firm than the Clippers investigation,” Windhorst reported during a recent episode of ‘The Hoop Collective.’ “I want to be clear, I want to be cautious, but I had an executive say to me that if this is proven to be true, then this is actually more egregious than the Clippers deal.”
Windhorst also laid out why one executive viewed the Trent matter as potentially worse than the Clippers’ case. In that scenario, Los Angeles was not accused of creating salary cap relief; the issue was about getting Leonard more money. With the Bucks, the potential concern is different: a favorable cap setup that could help them construct a roster around Giannis Antetokounmpo.
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