Hoo boy. OK, so the obvious place you have to start with Gary Trent Jr. is his contract. It is the elephant in the room. There’s natural resentment toward Trent because of the contract. I get that. However, to me, the ire of fans shouldn’t go toward the player; it should go toward the GM, who—in his flailing desperation to put the best team possible around Giannis last offseason—made a deal with the devil that could have much harsher implications than simply having what is, for all intents and purposes,
$64m of dead money on your cap over the next four seasons.
Selfishly, I hope the league cannot prove a handshake deal was made and thus chooses not to prosecute, but as I understand it, they don’t need to. All the NBA needs to deduce is that, aside from cap circumvention, there is no other reasonable conclusion for why one of the NBA’s worst players last year inked such a lucrative deal. Look, there are smokescreens Jon Horst can throw out that are at least somewhat plausible—“he took minimums to play with Giannis, and now the Bucks have cap space and have to spend it on someone”—but none of them pass the smell test. That said, I also want to highlight that the “take consecutive minimum deals to get early Bird rights and then sign a big contract” tactic has been used by everyone over the years; GT’s deal just stands out more because he played so poorly the season before agreeing to it.
In any event, it happened, and we will see what transpires from here. If the Bucks are penalised—and especially if the penalties are severe—Horst should be on thin ice; it’s tough to have much faith in his decision-making after this whole fiasco (if it wasn’t before that). Now let’s move on to the basketball side of things. As has been well-documented, Trent is coming off what was essentially his worst year in the league last season. Other than his rookie campaign, the 27-year-old has never had a worse shooting season. He averaged just 21.8 minutes per game—also the lowest since he was a rookie—and even spent stretches out of the rotation completely. Anecdotally, Trent’s defensive effort and engagement were some of the worst I’ve seen—and it’s not as if the bar for him was all that high.
Having said all of this, it’s worth mentioning that the team was a complete and utter mess all year—both on-court and off it—with Doc Rivers constantly switching up the starting lineup, rotations, etc. One could be forgiven for failing to find a groove amidst that mess. Crucially, Trent isn’t a player who thrives regardless of context; he’s at his best when he plays off elite talent and knows where his looks are coming from, which was far from the case last year. And to top it all off, there was some pseudo-tanking going on towards the back end of the year as well, which wouldn’t have helped.
Let me say this: I feel confident that in a more settled environment where the team 1) understands what is trying to be achieved from an on-court standpoint, and 2) doesn’t have to deal with rampant off-court drama, Trent will revert to the mean somewhat. Now, will he play to the level that he ends up being worth the coin he’s earning? There’s just no way; that contract is a howler. All I’m trying to say is that this man isn’t as bad as he played last season. He’s just not. This will be a bounce-back season for the eight-year vet—you heard it here first.
Who do y’all have at 12?
