At least with Kawhi Leonard you’re getting a dude who’s a stud when he’s on the court.

Doing all that for Gary Trent Jr though? Lmao

Giving role players less money in a wink wink deal isn’t as much about that player as it is about the other players the illicit deal allows the team to afford while still filling out the roster. Like if Boston did this with Hauser so they could afford Robinson or White or whoever

Joe smith 2.0

Came here to say the same thing, can’t believe we lost norm Powell for this dud

Who is the agent again? And what other players is signed with that agent? lol obviously it isn’t for Gary Trent but it probably is for a star in the future?

Joe Smith was two steps above a #1 pick bust when Minnesota did the same for him.

He was a decent starter level player but not a star.

The NBA should give a harsher punishment to the Bucks for doing all this for Gary Trent Jr.

Ruining the Browns and now ruining the Bucks.

For a second, I thought you were talking about Udonis Haslem and I had missed something wild.

Haslam.

Don’t associate these people with Udonis. He doesn’t deserve it.

It might not seem reasonable to you but there’s already precedence.

Wolves got docked 5 picks and lost Joe Smith.

Clippers got docked 5 picks and didn’t lose Kawhi.

Clippers already got off lighter than the Wolves who did the same thing as the Bucks.

The Wolves eventually got 2 picks back for cooperation, but their initial punishment was actually worse than the Clippers punishment.

No Len Bias, but I think the punishment should be more severe.

this is going to be propped up by ballmer surrogates and clippers fans out of spite

and nothing will happen because there will be no proof and player’s union will riot if Bucks get punished for paying a player more than people think they should have

Get ready to learn karma farming from salary cap circumvention news, I went through this for a year

I think anyone genuinely equating these situations completely misunderstood why the Kawhi deals were such a scandal.

Yeah a under the table handshake deal is certainly much different than paying a player 50 million + with fake endorsement deals…

If it’s true that he bucks should be punished but maybe not on the Kawhi-Clippers level

I’m not sure there is much of a difference in the way the league views it because both are salary cap circumvention. Whether it’s improper endorsements or the promise for a higher contract later.

As far as we know, Trent’s agent and the Bucks FO shook hands on terms for a second contract well in advance.

I mean, that’s what we think and what it appears to be but we don’t know how all of it played out and I think it’s going to be hard to prove.

IIRC when he signed with the bucks they were in the second apron and the maximum he could sign for was the minimum. So if the conversation was “we can only sign you for the minimum now, but when we have your early bird rights in a couple of seasons, we’d be able to sign you for more”, I think they’d be in the clear if there aren’t promises and specific amounts.

They could always explain away the value by saying that they knew he had a down year but they are expecting him to bounce back and will be taking a lot more shots in the new offense. He’s getting paid more than he’s worth in the first couple seasons but with the rising cap he’ll be a valuable trade piece in those last two years. I don’t think that’s true or smart, but they can at least explain it away.

There wasn’t a good explanation that the clippers could make for why they asked Daktronics for a spend back and specifically said that should be an endorsement deal for Kawhi.

At least Gary Trent Jr.’s deal takes an investigation to look suspicious. Beal’s contract looks like a crime scene in broad daylight.

I disagree. This is still a variant of cap circumvention and it deserves punishment. It’s just not as egregious and fraudulent as what happened with Kawhi and the Clippers.

It’s still cap circumvention. Whether you think it’s the same doesn’t matter lol

I think the hand wringing from everyone pretending this is nearly equivalent to the clippers thing is laughable

probably just a second round pick docked. similar to the mavs/brunson situation with the knicks. verbal agreements aren’t the same as what the clippers did.

A verbal promise still creates a contract. You can’t create secret contracts circumventing the cap

This is similar to the Joe Smith situation. You can’t make a deal to underpay now via small, short contracts in exchange for overpaying with a bigger and longer contract later that just happens to coincide with the team acquiring Bird rights that allow for the higher salary.

Think of it like this:

Trent received 3 separate contracts. Two very short and low, one very high and longer. If that had been packaged as a single contract, it would have been something like 6/~$70M or somewhere around 11.5M/yr.

The problem is that the Bucks couldn’t have given him that contract to start with because of cap limits and roster costs. It’s what he ended up with but allegedly only because the Bucks and Trent agreed “look, we’ll get you what you’re asking for but we can’t do this above board because of cap limits so we need to do some funky accounting (that is expressly forbidden by the CBA) to make it work, cool?”

It’s not similar to Kawhi’s situation. Totally different example of cap circumvention but at the end of the day: the specifics are less important than the alleged result: both the Bucks and Clippers are being investigated for business arrangements that violate the CBA.

And no, this isn’t the same as, say, Brunson or anyone else taking less now to help the team with roster flexibility in hopes of making more later. If you’re operating in good faith, then you can negotiate a lower salary to help the team but then decide, when an extension comes up, you negotiate for a higher salary. Those are two separate contracts, not one secretly split into 2-3 in order to avoid cap limits.

Literally every team does this. This is the league trying to send the Bucks back into the shadow realm because they hate that the Bucks didn’t move and Milwaukee was good for a few years.

The agreement being verbal instead of written doesn’t make it any better. I don’t get why you seem to think it does. The CBA is pretty clear that even an implied agreement of a future contract in exchange for taking a below market contract to join the team is a serious violation. Serious enough that the Wolves who did the same thing were initially docked 5 picks and lost Joe Smith for nothing.

“At no time shall there be any agreements or transactions of any kind (whether disclosed or undisclosed to the NBA), express or implied, oral or written, or promises, undertakings, representations, commitments, inducements, assurances of intent, or understandings of any kind (whether disclosed or undisclosed to the NBA), between a player (or any person or entity controlled by, related to, or acting with authority on behalf of, such player) and any Team (or Team Affiliate) concerning any future Renegotiation, Extension, or other amendment of an existing Player Contract, or entry into a new Player Contract” Its pretty cut and dry here

I’m somewhere between you and wanting the clippers treatment. It’s a big problem, it’s serious, it needs to be punished, but it’s not quite as severe as what the clippers did. Maybe 3 firsts and 3 seconds?

My guess is morey used ambiguous language that harden interpreted as a promise but in legal speak he was safe. This is pretty blatant by the bucks.

They do not need written proof. Circumstantial evidence is enough. The Bucks need to be able to explain why they needed to offer this.

I don’t think this is just a normal bad contract. There’s no other rational explanation for giving GTJ that contract after the season he just had. Was he even offered over the minimum from any other team in the NBA?

It’s actually not that hard to prove. You just need to look at the deals GTJ was offered during the relevant time periods. That will already tell you a lot.

In fact, we already know he turned down resigning with the Raptors at 15 per year before signing with the Bucks at the minimum. His new contract with the Bucks btw? Also at 16 per year.

Teams are not allowed to say that.

In the NFL you could structure a contract with a low payment one year and a higher one the next, I’m not sure why the NBA can’t do similar. That being said, it IS materially against the rules to promise future payouts here and very black and white. Still not as bad as the clippers since that money never impacted ANY cap and broke the max, but still blatant cap circumvention too

I will never understand this logic, gaining extra cap space is the single biggest advantage you can gain in a league with a salary cap.

By the letter of the law that’s cap circumvention. I think it’s kind of a stupid rule because it carries inherent risk for the player when there’s no enforceable contract, but it is what it is.

The only difference is that Philly didn’t give James the contract.

You pointed out the difference yourself, Morey didn’t follow through and do the crime, he may have never intended to. That probably shouldn’t be allowed either but here we are

For Gary Trent Jr I’m just confused why we care? Like the Bucks are going to be bad for the foreseeable future, I really just wanna understand this one

The Bucks’ cap circumvention issue is not with this season, it’s with prior seasons when they had Giannis and they were trying to contend. In those seasons, they underpaid Trent with the promise he’d make more in the future. While Trent was being underpaid, the Bucks used the extra cap room to bring in other players like Myles Turner. If the Bucks had been paying Trent $10 or 15 million last season, they probably would not have been able to give Turner the big contract that he got.

Yeah, this isnt a new thing. Cap circumvention has happened in every year since 2000

OG got a fucking bag though, how is that the same?

Unless you’re meaning more along the lines of tampering and saying, “we’ll give you this money when/if you come” when he was with TO. The latter of which happens all the time and is different than cap circumvention (it’s more tampering but that’s not really enforced).

The Knicks traded for Anunoby then gave him a 5-year contract in free agency. How is that comparable in any way lol

That is more tampering than cap circumvention. That’s the Knicks trading for OG and then telling him that they will pay him his market value though OG did reach Free Agency so he very much had the opportunity to sign elsewhere if he wanted.

Guessing you’re being downvoted by Knicks fans since you mentioned OG, but you’re not wrong in that I guarantee most teams do this type of shady thing. But now that little ole Milwaukee is in a rebuilding phase they want to try and make an example out of them.

OG? You’re saying the 5 year 212 million contract they gave him the 6 months after acquiring him was a wink wink?

The Clippers wish they had the history of the Bucks lol

Bucks have two championships lol

It sets a terrible precedent and is against league rules

What did kawhi’s deal harm?

The whole league