Major Bucks punishment looming, per latest NBA reporting

There is still no official indication on a timeline or potential punishment for the NBA investigation into the massive contract the Milwaukee Bucks gave Gary Trent Jr. this offseason, but the league is buzzing that it won’t end well for the Bucks.

Per the latest Hoop Collective podcast with ESPN reporters, “everybody in the league expects a guilty finding.” If for whatever reason you aren’t up to date on the latest Gary Trent Jr. contract investigation news, the NBA is looking into whether the four-year, $64 million deal Trent Jr. signed this summer is the result of a cap circumvention scheme. Trent Jr. signed two much smaller contracts in back-to-back offseasons before this big one.

The Bucks are facing a potential catastrophe over the Gary Trent Jr. investigation, per @WindhorstESPN , @BobbyMarks42 , @BannedMacMahon

"Everybody in the league expects a guilty finding."

"If they are found guilty, there are going to be draft picks stripped and people… pic.twitter.com/4PE8Wqpl3R
— NBABase (@TheNBABase) November 11, 2026

Going from a smaller deal to a larger one after proving yourself with a new team is not investigation worthy in itself. Trent, however, declined in basically every metric from his first to second Bucks season and still got that massive deal despite the Bucks drafting a guard and trading for two more in the Giannis Antetokounmpo deal. In the midst of a summer where teams were very thrifty with guaranteed contracts, Trent got four guaranteed seasons after scoring 8.1 points per game on 38% field goal shooting.

If the league determines the Bucks gave this big deal to Trent because they previously promised it to get him to sign under-market deals, that is what the NBA calls cap circumvention, a huge no-no. It’s the same general rule that the Clippers were punished for breaking with regard to Kawhi Leonard, resulting in a massive set of penalties including five first-round picks being revoked and multiple front office and ownership suspensions.

Ideally, the Bucks could simply allege they believe in Trent as a player and hope he bounces back this season so that the contract doesn’t look so glaring one year into it. Bucks general Jon Horst more or less did this in trying to justify the contract before the season, citing Trent's elite bench shooting numbers.

Jon Horst on extending Gary Trent Jr.:

"When you look at Gary Trent and what he's done for us in the last 2 seasons — and even before us in his young career — he's an elite shooter, I think one of 5 or 6 players to shoot and make the amount of 3s he has as a reserve over the… pic.twitter.com/XH3WmmNDen
— Bucks Lead (@BucksLead) September 28, 2026

The good news is Trent is indeed shooting a better percentage: he’s hitting 55.6% from 3. The bad news is he’s taken 9 total threes, as Taylor Jenkins has excised him from the rotation entirely except for garbage time. Trent has logged 23 total minutes this season across the four games he’s played in.

Nowhere to be Found

While Trent struggled last season and is not one of the key young players on the Bucks, the decision to not play him at all makes the Bucks look at best hapless and at worst guilty for the contract they handed him in July. It is genuinely scandalous for a team to sign a player to a $64 million deal two months after hiring a new head coach, just for said coach to staple said pricey player to the bench, despite a 1-11 start to the season.

None of this adds up, which certainly does not help Milwaukee’s case that the front office simply believes in Trent despite his bad season. Either Jenkins simply doesn’t care that Horst and the front office were clearly quite high on Gary Trent Jr., or the Bucks have some indication one way or another on how the investigation will play out.

With the team on an eight-game losing streak and already short on draft picks for the forseeable future, a punishment that takes multiple first-rounders away feels absolutely dire. Hopefully Brayden Burries and Nate Ament continue to show legitimate flashes, as they may be the last Bucks first-round selections for quite a while if the rumor mill is on point.

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