{"id":795199,"date":"2026-07-12T09:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T09:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795199\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T09:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T09:08:20","slug":"why-gary-trent-jr-s-64-million-deal-with-the-bucks-shocked-the-nba-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/795199\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Gary Trent Jr.\u2019s $64-million deal with the Bucks shocked the NBA world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: The news that the Milwaukee Bucks had agreed to pay Gary Trent Jr. $64 million over four years<\/a> broke during Las Vegas Summer League. We asked our NBA experts for their reaction to the signing:<\/p>\n

John Hollinger: Sitting in a row of media folks watching a summer league game as the news broke, it was amusing to see a conga line of people look at their phones, blurt \u201cWHAT?!?!?\u201d and then begin cackling.<\/p>\n

Gary Trent Jr. played his way out of the rotation on a bad team last season; suffice to say, it seemed unlikely he would generate a bidding war for much above the minimum salary. Yet Trent becomes one of the few players this offseason to get four fully guaranteed seasons in a market where most role players have been squeezed on both years and dollars.<\/p>\n

My BORD$ formula rated Trent as a minimum player<\/a>, and that doesn\u2019t seem like shocking information given that he was an unrestricted free agent each of the last two summers and signed for the minimum both times. His new contract, however, pays him the maximum amount for a player with early Bird rights. Again, who were the Bucks bidding against here? Jim Buss?<\/p>\n

I expect most league analytics and cap departments to rate Trent\u2019s deal among the league\u2019s most negative value propositions. He would have to seriously outrun expectations just for Milwaukee to break even.<\/p>\n

Mike Vorkunov: The contract is definitely \u2026 curious. It\u2019s hard to explain in rational terms. Trent has been a declining player for several seasons. He signed a minimum contract with the Bucks and then posted his worst NBA season since he was on his rookie contract. He started just 21 games for a 32-win team. He averaged 8.1 points per game and his worst 3-point shooting numbers since he was a rookie. Go check out his career arc by DPM<\/a>. It\u2019s all not great.<\/p>\n

Now, also consider that this has been an offseason where guaranteed money has been hard to come by, even for productive veterans. The NBPA executive director lamented that fact Friday. So, how does Trent go from a minimum bench player to getting the 10th-largest contract handed out in free agency this summer? All guaranteed, by the way. Well, it\u2019s all a bit curious.<\/p>\n

Sam Vecenie: For two months now, I\u2019ve gotten asked by league sources not connected to the Bucks or Klutch (Trent\u2019s agency) if I\u2019d heard that the Bucks were going to give Gary Trent Jr. something in the ballpark of the full-midlevel exception for four years, and my response was typically something along the lines of, \u201cThere\u2019s no way they can do that coming off of the season he had, right?\u201d This deal, as Sam Amick and Eric Nehm reported, has been anticipated.<\/p>\n

The NBA should pretty clearly look into this contract in regard to salary-cap circumvention. I cannot remember a player agreeing to sign for the minimum one year, having his worst season in seven years where he was a below-average player by any standard, and then receiving five times as much money in free agency the following year \u2014 let alone four guaranteed years in a marketplace where starting-quality players on good teams, which Trent proved that he was not this past season, had an exceptionally difficult time getting multiple guaranteed years. Regarding what Vorkunov said above, that feels at the very least some real circumstantial evidence that this deal cannot be rationally explained.<\/p>\n

But then again, the worst punishment the Bucks can receive here might be paying Gary Trent Jr. $64 million for the next four years, given that he\u2019s seen downticks in scoring average in each of the last five years and overall offensive efficiency in four of the last five outside of a spike season in 2024-25, his lone season since 2020 where he\u2019s had a true-shooting percentage above league-average as a player who derives most of his value as a shooter and scorer.<\/p>\n

Hollinger: Sam makes a good point here: voiding the contract would be strongly in the Bucks\u2019 interests. Penalizing the Bucks draft picks or fining them, on the other hand, would be possible remedies even if the league let the contract stand.<\/p>\n

David Aldridge: I would love to contribute to the dialogue on what can only be described as \u201cWhat did they just do?\u201d but my guy, the American University demon Matt Rogers, is doing work for the Sixers\u2019 summer squad!<\/p>\n

Hollinger: League source confirms that DA is reveling in the Matt Rogers Experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: The news that the Milwaukee Bucks had agreed to pay Gary Trent Jr. $64 million over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,4620,590,85],"class_list":["post-795199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}