Arizona fan here. Burries has the potential to be great, he was a dawg for us last year. Rooting for him

Bucks are short on Forwards, not on guards

As he should be. Let your star players do their thing.

The reason why they’re investigating in the first place is because of the fishy circumstances. He signs for super low while they have Giannis to fill out the roster then once they get early bird on him and there’s more cap room they give him a massive contract for him after he was under market previously and his performance has declined? Sure there are bad contracts all the time but the circumstantial evidence and them not even playing him makes it odd

Circumstancial evidence can be used

Nor is the NBA in a position to claim when a player should or shouldn’t command minutes.

They do this all the time. They’ve fined coaches and/or teams for not playing certain players as recently as last year.

Article XIII, Section 2(d)

(Cap cirvumvention) may be proven by direct or circumstantial evidence, including, but not limited to, evidence that a Player Contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of conduct violative of (cap circumvention)

Not only can circumstantial evidence be used, his contract looks so suspicious that the Bucks actually have to explain how its NOT cap circumvention.

The Bucks can’t say his play deserved it, since it was objectively a terrible year for him.

They can’t use ‘injury last year and hoping for a bounce back year.’ There were no nagging injuries reported the entire year.

They have to say why they gave 4 fully guaranteed years at an inflated price rather than non-guaranteed years or taking advantage of the poor play with a discount.

Simply saying “hur-hur, Bucks are stupid” is not a rational explanation.

If they paid a player below market value and then paid him above market value after mediocre years, that can be used to build a case.

Circumstantial evidence is still valid evidence.

You pay the guy shit coming off a decent season, then suddenly pay him an insanely generous contract after playing like absolute shit? Oh and that just happens to perfectly coincide with a tough cap situation for the team.

There really is no argument to justify this contract and everybody knows it.

The nba actually has broad, explicit powers to punish for cap circumvention based on vibes. Now, whether they are motivated to shoot a small market, rebuilding team in the head is another thing entirely.

Maybe you should a look at the rules again. The onus is on the teams to justify deals if something looks fishy. Its not on the league to prove or find irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing. This was covered multiple times during the Clippers investigation.

Unless there is evidence in written communication, what can the NBA do to the Bucks if it’s just circumstantial?

Whatever the hell the league (i.e. in essence 29 other owners and NBPA) find acceptable. Even in actual lawsuits you quite often don’t have to present a literal written confession or a smoking gun to declare someone guilty, a balance of probabilities is enough. In an internal business investigation the standard is lower, if anything.

Go on the Bucks subreddit and everyone’s convinced that there’s no way he could’ve possibly known that any of his bad moves wouldn’t have worked out, so therefore he’s actually a really good GM. It’s infuriating.

That’s what happens when you have a superstar that won’t commit. The Bucks are where they are because they had to show Giannis they were trying to win a title every year no matter what.

And the ownership hired Doc. Horst wanted Atkinson.

I mean just to use a historical example, the most similar example of cap circumvention is wolves and Joe Smith. They cooperated and had the punishment reduced.

Putting aside whether you think what the bucks did is worse, which I think is stupid but to each their own, there are multiple avenues to not being punished as bad (which as I laid out include not having written evidence, GTJ not cooperating, the bucks cooperating more than the clippers, etc.)

People who think they will be punished as severely as clippers are not serious people. They just want it to be true

He actually didn’t take the max amount of money on his extension. Thought you are correct in it was a max.

He took a 3 year max extension instead of the 4 year max extension. Which is about 6 million less per year and 73 million in total guaranteed money.

I’m of the opinion that he very well could have pushed for 4 years if he didn’t have a sweetheart deal on the side, especially with his injury history.

You wrote it down

Yea unless there is written evidence, I don’t see the justification other than Silver just handing down a punishment. I replied elsewhere in this thread, but I’ll copy it here:

“Unless there is evidence in written communication, what can the NBA do to the Bucks if it’s just circumstantial?

“Oh, GTJR is not a good enough player to command 64m.”

Or

“You’re paying him 64m and not playing him, which means it was illegal.”

I mean we all agree, but the NBAPA will not want the NBA dictating what is and isn’t market value for their player. Nor is the NBA in a position to claim when a player should or shouldn’t command minutes.

People point to the Wolves but they got popped because the agency wanted it in writing because they didn’t trust Wolves ownership, so they agreed and that was what did them in.”

They can, but as the person noted they will have a huge fight with the NBAPA about it. Part of how they got the clippers is they got the PA and Kawhi to flip on the clippers and not fight. Idk why people seem to not grasp this

Kuzma isn’t a guard. All the guards they are giving extended playtime to right now are either super young or trade pieces worth potential firsts.

I don’t think Rich Paul would be that understanding

Yes but u guys wrote it down on paper 🤔😅

so you’re out for blood now i see

and there were multiiple rumors of teams offering him the midlevel as he’d just spent the previous few years shooting like 38-39% from 3 on high volume.