The Bucks are staring at the same kind of danger the Clippers just absorbed, and Gary Trent Jr.’s contract is the reason why.
The NBA’s punishment of Los Angeles on Sept. 2 showed exactly how far the league is willing to go when it believes salary cap rules were broken. After a yearlong investigation into Kawhi Leonard’s contract, the Clippers were hit with a massive blow: five first-round picks stripped away, a $30 million fine for owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker.
Leonard was fined $700,000, but he avoided any suspension or contract voiding. He is set to return to his former team with the Toronto Raptors to begin the 2026-27 season after Los Angeles and Toronto agreed to trade Leonard for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, one first-round pick swap and two second-rounders.
For the Clippers, though, the damage is long-term. They will be without first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, and the punishment leaves a rebuilding team in an even deeper hole.
That’s why Milwaukee is paying close attention. The Bucks are under their own investigation involving Trent and the contract they gave him, and the possibility of a similar outcome is very real.
On July 11, it was reported that Milwaukee and Trent had agreed to a fully guaranteed four-year, $64 million deal. The number raised eyebrows immediately, especially because Trent averaged just 8.1 points per game while shooting 38.7% from the field.
The deal looked even stranger when placed next to Trent’s recent contract history. He signed a one-year deal for the veteran minimum in 2024, then followed that with a two-year, $7.58 million contract in 2025. Only a few days later, ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the NBA would investigate the Bucks’ deal.
Joe Vardon of The Athletic then dug into why the league is still looking closely at Milwaukee. One big difference from the Clippers case is that Los Angeles was found to have used outside employment contracts worth millions of dollars and extra benefits beyond Leonard’s basketball salary. Another is that the Clippers probe became public through the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, while the Bucks investigation has stayed much quieter.
Still, Vardon wrote that if league investigators uncover evidence of cap circumvention, Milwaukee could be looking at punishment that matches - or even exceeds - what the Clippers received.
"If league investigators find proof that the Bucks and Trent are guilty of what the Clippers and Leonard were guilty of, the punishment could be equally severe, if not worse," Vardon said. "The details that caught the NBA’s attention regarding Trent’s deal are this: Trent, 27, had signed two prior contracts for much less money with Milwaukee amid the previous two summers of 2024 and 2025 (including for the league minimum in 2024)."
Vardon also noted that Trent turned down player options on both of those deals, positioning himself for a bigger payday. He added that the timing of the new contract, which will pay Trent more than $15 million annually, stood out even more because it came after what he described as his worst statistical season since his rookie year.
"There were player options attached to both deals, and he declined them both, setting up larger paydays. Then, in the run-up to his new contract, which will pay him more than $15 million annually, he muddled through his worst statistical campaign since his rookie campaign from eight years ago."
At the center of the league’s inquiry is a simple question: did Milwaukee and Trent intentionally work through smaller, cheaper contracts so he could be rewarded later in a way that would run afoul of the NBA’s salary rules?
Vardon also pointed out that if Trent’s new deal had come at the start of free agency, rather than weeks later after the blockbuster trade that sent Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami, the reaction around the league might have been very different. Rival executives, he wrote, would have mocked it after a mediocre season.
But because the contract surfaced after most teams had already spent most of their cap space, those same executives viewed Milwaukee as paying far above Trent’s value. The Bucks’ response to those rivals was that they believed in Trent’s market value and saw him as a $15 million-per-year player.
Milwaukee has been in this lane before. Bobby Portis, who was also traded to the Heat along with Antetokounmpo, signed two separate two-year deals with player options in 2021 and 2022, declined both, and then landed a four-year, $48 million contract in 2022 to remain with the Bucks. Trent’s path looks similar on the surface.
The key difference, as the source noted, is performance. Portis had a strong season before getting his longer deal, averaging 14.6 points and 9.1 rebounds while shooting 47.9% from the field and 39.3% from 3-point range. If Trent had produced like that, there likely would not be an investigation at all.
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