The Milwaukee Bucks raised eyebrows last weekend when they signed 8.1 ppg guard Gary Trent, Jr. to a four-year, $64 million contract. Now it appears the outlandish amount is drawing attention from the NBA League Office.
Per Shams Charania of ESPN, the league is set to “probe” the deal, presumably investigating whether negotiations were prearranged. Trent accepted low, $2-3 million contracts from the Bucks in the previous two seasons. A quid pro quo to pay him more in this contract would violate Collective
Bargaining Agreement rules.
In the latest Stein Line substack, NBA writer Marc Stein recounts the response to the signing.
The leaguewide response, frankly, has been profound shock … even when such a deal for Trent had been whispered about for some time. Quite a paradox.
How the league office reacts to such a contract, however, remains to be seen. The deal has not yet been formally announced by the Bucks, which I’m told is among the reasons that the league office has issued no official response to requests for comment on the signing amid copious amounts of external noise that it is, at the very least, quite curious in the wake of the two low-dollar deals that Trent (repped by the aforementioned [Rich] Paul’s Klutch Sports agency) signed with them and how he performed in 2025-26.
Wrongdoing would be hard to prove, for lack of overt evidence, but the investigation is interesting, at least. Stay tuned.
