[Windhorst] The Bucks are facing a “catastrophe” in the Gary Trent Jr. investigation: “Everybody in the league expects a guilty finding … If they are found guilty, there are going to be draft picks stripped and people suspended indefinitely.”
Trading Giannis to rebuild and then getting picks taken away is franchise ruining
I’m not sure how this is gonna work, Portland owns so many of their firsts anyway
They’ll just take the picks away in the years after when they own their picks again.
Yeah they’re not going to penalize the Blazers for the Bucks fuckery.
Grass is green
They could also take away some of the picks Miami gave them
Yeah probably even more crippling than the clippers punishment even if it’s slightly less picks. Barring any crazy luck this team will be hot garbage for the foreseeable future. Please just fire horst after all this is over.
I would guess 1 of 2 scenarios with the Blazer related picks assuming an LAC level punishment:
Probably most preferable for bucks:
Give us the right to accept the ‘28 and ‘30 swaps and take those picks as the Bucks will not get to keep either one of those lotto picks and let the league take the Blazers swapped 17-24th pick.
The ‘29 pick is not the Bucks to give away as it is owned by the Blazers. So it would be the swapped ‘28, ‘30, and ‘31-‘33 picks.
Or just forfeit the ‘31-‘35 picks, all likely lotto 1-16.
They’ll be forced to trade anyone of value and effectively become an expansion team.
If this goes through they might have to move Herro/Ware/Turner
We wont get a single first for any of those players.
This is just delusional. Especially on Herro.
Herro isnt worth a first. Tre Young and Ja Morant got traded for 0 picks, herro is a score first no defense guard and is on an expiring contract. If I am a team I am low balling Milwaukee and telling them to take it or lose him for nothing in free agency or overpay and be stuck with a bad contract.
Or worse they might be stuck with herro ware and turner
Meh he was leaving anyways, and the Dame deal screwed our future.
Our fans were tired of his ass every year stating “well I might leave if you don’t get me some talent” …so he more or less orchestrated the Dame deal and left. He got us a ring but itll come at the cost of screwing our future for a decade +
dame getting injured screwed our future*
you take that deal 10⁄10 times
wasn’t he also injured before arriving in Milwaukee? the ab tear was a serious injury for him.
As a Suns fan, you could have no ring and no future - y’all have it good.
Yep 100% worth it
On the bright side tickets are going to be cheap as FUCK for a while for people who just like to watch basketball. Luka’s coming to town tonight and you can get in the lower bowl for $40, those tickets were almost 10x last year
I mean 100% worth it. He’s the best player in franchise history and carried that team in the finals. Any fan would gladly forfeit 10 years of picks for a chip.
Waited a year too long. At least.
If they just get the picks taken away that they traded for, then they can at least just pretend they Giannis left in FA. Not awesome at all, but it’s something that used to happen quite a bit
That front office must be so dang grateful for the Brewers win.
Trading Giannis a year too late was already franchise ruining
Next level stupidity. They outdone the clippers with this one.
If the Bucks only get a pick penalty and a fine with no cap reduction penalties, Trent’s contract getting voided would make it easier to sign Giannis in free agency while keeping Herro and Jaquez.
Losing the picks isn’t good, but the Bucks might benefit from extra cap space next summer if the contract is voided.
All this BS for Gary Trent Jr
Sure glad we got the title in 21, because we won’t see the light of day for at least the next 5-7 years if they end up losing more draft picks due to this stupidity.
What’s REALLY crazy here is that the Clippers almost certainly did the exact same shit with Beal. So… What then? Lol
What are you talking about? GTJ was signed 2 years for early bird and then got the annual value he was looking for as a FA when they had the cap space + bird after the Giannis trade but for Beal the Clippers signed him to MLE, he declined and came back for the same money in a 2 year deal.
Beal could have signed with anyone after the buyout, but he signed with the clippers for less than he was offered elsewhere. He played like 4 games before getting hurt and was out for the season. Before the start of this season the clippers then voluntarily offered Beal, a dude who hasn’t been worth shit for nearly a decade and plays the same position as half their roster, a two year deal for $13 million with a PLAYER OPTION in the second year. There wasn’t a team in the NBA that was going to offer anything close to that. The implication being the clippers got Beal to sign with them in the first place for nothing with the promise they would pay him later. There’s no other explanation for that contract. The clippers already had like 8 guards before they signed him.
Look it’s very easy to pile on the Clippers… but surely you can see how it’s far more ambiguous for a player who was at one point a top 25 player or so in the League and one of the highest paid players in the league.
That’s far more grey than Gary fucking Trent.
John Hollinger and Nate Duncan are the people who spread that rumor but they also said that the Clips couldn’t re-sign Mathurin because of Beal’s contract, and that was completely false.
Two people I’m glad I stopped listening to.
I mean it is fishy. He played six games for them last year, the he opts out of his contract, somehow signs a new two year deal worth more than the minimum while still so injured that he hasn’t played this year. If that contract wasn’t because of circumvention then it was just amazingly stupid.
lol this is the stupidest take. In all likelihood, Beal never signs another NBA deal at all. Barring some truly incredible health improvements this will likely be his last contract– so how it is ANYTHING like the Gary Trent situation? He isn’t “taking less money now to get paid more later”. He’s on a cheap 1+1 using his non-Bird rights from his last-year salary, it’s a completely typical thing. Is it a BAD deal? Maybe, yeah, because who knows if Beal is even healthy enough to make it through the season. But is it cap circumvention? FOR BRADLEY BEAL IN 2026? What?
… huh? What is this new imagined conspiracy?
Yeah the Beal contract was almost definitely cap circumvention, which shows how flagrantly teams have been doing this.
What do you mean? You are about to trade Turner/Kuzma for Embiid.
That brewers title has to help too
Don’t worry, thanks to Adam Silver, all those picks are gonna be worthless anyway.
it was more for future signees from that management team. basically we were going to be blacklisted for any Free agents unless they kept their word.
They didn’t have to make the deal in the first place though
They didn’t, you are correct.
But it seems to me they got really desperate to retain Giannis. The Dame Stretch, the Turner signing. All to hope to keep Giannis who made up his mind to leave.
So from that perspective, maaaaaybe it made sense to try to maximize chances at another FA signing (did they even have cap space with GT on that smaller deal?)
The thing that makes it worse is that Gary Trent isn’t even good enough to make this deal with.
Why not trade Giannis earlier why was ownership so teriffied of losing Giannis people act like no Giannis means 35 wins over the next 50 years.
Yeah I think if GT was worth the contract there wouldn’t even be an investigation here. Bucks definitely got desperate to please Giannis
Well at least Turner is balling out for us, right fellas?!
Quite simply, they were desperate because Giannis was constantly playing cute when it came to leaving before every contract extension, thus leading to make the all-in moves, first the Jrue trade, then the Dame trade, then the Turner signing.
Stretching Dame’s contract for Turner is still one of the most mindboggling decisions I’ve ever seen. And somehow people had the nerve and lack of foresight to defend that move lol
They made the deal to go all in with Giannis.
What does that mean? How did they go “all in” with Gary Trent Jr? They never signed anyone amazing. They got like, KPJ.
Maybe at the time they were planning of acquiring someone else from clutch but then plans changed and they were on the hook for paying GTJ regardless
Unless you’re signing a guy’s brother, I have some doubts they would be would be willing to share like that. It would come at one of them’s expense.
It really just seems like a scam for bird rights. The other option is they flip and leak the whole thing anyway.
Unless every team does it. Then you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage.
The Sixers allegedly screwed over Harden and signed PG the next offseason
Harden and PG are good friends too lol
shocking that 34yr old PG would prioritize a 4 year, $212m contract instead of his buddy Jim Harden’s pissing match with Morey
Or don’t make backroom deals with mediocre players and then break the rules? They could have just not started this in the first place.
I’m not following this closely, so maybe speaking out of turn, but actual free agent signings are rare this era and even more rarely franchise-altering additions. There’s gotta be more than the threat of FA black listing to do something like this. Or just incredible ineptitude
Harlan’s razor, my dude.
You mean Hanlon’s razor
Yeah nobody’s turning down a big contract from the Bucks because they lied to Gary Trent Jr that one time.
Yeah we just watched Philly fuck over James harden then a couple years later they sign LeBron in free agency. Feels like fans have longer memories for this shit than the players do
I think the fear was the agency not even presenting the deal or hanging up the phone before even being able to talk to the player.
That’s a good way to get a player to fire their agent. “Sorry you have to play in China this year because someone lied to Gary Trent 5 years ago”
I don’t think agents can’t flat out hide an offer, but they can definitely advise their players not to sign with the Bucks and push them in another direction. How much they listen is up to the individual player.
I could see an agent being petty about it. Sure, the player wouldn’t turn it down, but the agent could steer the player elsewhere.
You’re reneging on an under the table deal. There are two obvious consequences:
You are going to have a hard time working with them in the future
They have the dirt that can expose the whole thing
Right, the only behavior this would discourage players to do would be agreeing to a verbal deal that circumvents the cap, which is illegal anyways lol
But it’s been thought that Klutch Sports may not engage with the Bucks, much, if at all, if they didn’t follow through with this. If true, then the Bucks weighed losing potentially a significant amount of draft capital, over losing a lot of, or all of, Klutch’s clients. But we’ll have to see what happens when the investigation is wrapped up and the findings are presented
Bro people keep repeating this dumb ass bullshit lmao
They did this with IT people said Boston is not getting anyone and they signed Hayward right after lmao, they did this with so many players
NBA agents/players do not care, offer them a contract and see how it goes
Teams don’t get free agents anyway, their best free agent signing ever is like a Brook Lopez who had an awful season in LA and wasn’t that valuable
Brook did not have an awful season in LA.
What wins? A bad reputation or a brinks truck full of money?
“Hey guy, bad news, I got you a 30mil/yr deal in Milwaukee, but they did my other guy dirty so we can’t take it. Good news though! Charlotte offered the 16mil MLE, so I told them yes”…
Getting ppl to sign with a storied contender does sound much easier than bringing ppl to the post Giannis bucks. Hell even w Giannis all they landed was Brook Lopez (even if he did help them get a ring that’s not a crazy name)
The Bucks dont sign free agents regardless people even keeping klutch happy the Bucks wont be able to sign 1 free agent. People act like they are some free agent magnet. Draft picks should be more important for a small market team.
Is that management team going to get in trouble at all? Can’t the NBA say “you’re not allowed to represent our players anymore” or something? I’m sure that would raise hell with the players union but there’s gotta be some sense of corruption being a two-way street, no?
Also Klutch client Braden Burries fell a few spots to the Bucks, perhaps that was a part of the deal.
ehh who cares tbh. Klutch doesn’t have every NBA player as a client and even so if the Bucks offer a FA repped by Klutch a good contract they are going to turn down guaranteed money because Gary Trent Jr didn’t get his?
Can someone ELI5 this for me? What benefit to the team would it be to overpay for a guy who they aren’t going to play? Was it to encourage another max player to sign for them?
Gary Trent Jr. is a fine bench piece in the NBA. While the Bucks were competing he was on the minimum. When Giannis leaves he suddenly starts making 16 million a year while having less minutes. The assumption is the Bucks asked him to take a discount while going for the title and they would make it up for them later, which is against the CBA
They did it with Bobby Portis
even though everyone knows it, portis played up to his contract to a reasonable degree so it’s hard to make that case to an independent arbiter.
Thanks for the explanation! Seems like a lot of trust on both sides to do that…and a lot of stupidity to make it so obvious and not give him any playing time right out of the gate.
Imagine the deals that are being made that we never end up hearing about because neither side is dumb enough to make it obvious.
You don’t want to be the team with the reputation for reneging on under the table deals. Nobody will agree to them with you anymore.
I mean it’s not a big deal for the team outside they don’t fulfill the quid pro quo and their dirty aired out. Or like this situation where someone is worth a bigger contract at the time of deal and not when it comes time to pay it.
The player risks getting shafted.
It’s kind of a tricky situation, though. Players do take team discounts, and teams can later give them a good deal. You just can’t have an agreement to do that… (Dirk took a discount to give his team a winning chance, and then got a sweet deal later, but obviously Dirk is Dirk)
The tough part will be in proving that this was some plan to circumvent the cap, and not just rewarding a player who has played semi decently in the last, and now seems to have regressed (or they’re just obviously tanking)
He took a discount in previous years when they were trying to contend with the understanding that he’d be overpaid later on. Cap maneuvering.
Didn’t harden do the same thing in Philly. That led to the whole “morey is a liar thing” ?
Depends on details. Look, we’ll take care of you is different than I’m going to offer you a max deal if you do x. It’s why the league got Joe Smith they put the shit in writing.
Even our case, we had Rick Fox who wanted to come to LA for his acting career and play with Shaq/Kobe. He willingly took the paycut until we had bird rights to give him what he was worth.
The only way to sign him is by promising him future money. That is very illegal in the cba, honestly there’s a case to be made it’s worse than kawhi. Bucks truly only acquired him due to this cheating, kawhi just took more money than he was legally allowed to.
Absolute nonsense. The clippers only acquired Kawhi because they were willing to cheat with the cap too. And there it didn’t impact the team operating, Here they just shifted the total pay, they’re were going to get stuck with less cap room at some point. There was a balance to it that just wasn’t there with the Clippers. They chose to be better now and worse later. Clippers just chose to be better now, and never be worse.
Both broke the rules, and need to be slapped down, but the Kawhi deal is far worse since that type of situation permanently fucks over the competitiveness of other teams.
The only way that is true is if kawhi only signed with clippers due to the under the table payments and that he would have stayed with raptors if not for it. With all the nonsense around kawhi it seems he wanted to go to LA regardless. But clippers always paid Kawhi the most could legally.
Yeah, they’re different forms of it. Kawhi was paying him off the books more than he would have been allowed, but counting against the cap to the max; this is cap circumvention in a way that minimized his impact when they were competing
With kawhi clippers paid him as much as they could so there wasn’t really a team building advantage. Maybe you could say he only signed with the clippers because they promised to cheat for him but they didn’t get cap relief or anything. Bucks truly have a different team and a player they wanted only signed with them because of this cheating.
Didn’t Udonis hasten very blatantly do this too? Rumors of Brunson. Etc. like everyone does this
Udonis wasn’t nearly as blatant or significant if we’re being honest. And Brunson really wasn’t a discount. It was the most he could have signed for at the time.
It is not Kawhi is an All-NBA level player not a role player like GTJ. Kawhi is a legitimate needle mover for a team or teams.
It is worse. All teams are restricted by the CBA, Bucks found a way around it. Clippers didn’t get cap relief from paying Kawhi the max
I think you’re missing the main thing here. The bucks weren’t just saving on Trent’s salary those years. They were circumventing luxury tax by artificially lowering their cap number while above the tax threshold, so they could pay back those savings while they were below the tax threshold (now). The bigger deal is not that they got Gary Trent, it’s that what they did is essentially cheating the NBA revenue sharing system and stealing money from the league and its owners.
The clippers messed with competitive balance but they were paying Kawhi the max and were deep into the tax. Non-competitive team owners don’t give a shit about that. What upsets most owners in that case is the clippers over-empowering Kawhi and setting insane precedent for what you provide for star players.
The bucks messed with competitive balance to a much lesser degree, and setting that same precedent of promising future earnings, but they also messed with the owners money, which to a lot of owners (especially the ones consistently receiving revenue sharing) is even worse.
Gary Trent Jr signed to the bucks two seasons ago for a vet min. Although at the time he was a solid role player and worth much more. However, since joining the bucks he has severely regressed as a player and is basically unplayable and is currently riding the end of the bench for the bucks. The issue is that, the bucks paid him this offseason a 4 year 65 mil contract. Even though he is worth nothing more than a vet minimum now.
So in other words, they are paying him the contract he was worth 3 years ago. But he is not worth any more than a vet min right now. So that is why everyone, and now the nba is looking into why exactly the bucks massively overpaid him this season and only paid him a vet min two seasons ago when he was worth more.
And that just so happened to be when the bucks also traded for lillard and had giannis and were planning to compete for a ring. So basically they had trent and possibly other players take pay cuts for bigger contracts down the line. Which would be circumventing the salary cap.
Trent was a decent role player who was making \(18M per year. Going into the 2024-25 season, he signed a minimum with the Bucks. After a good season there, he signed another minimum with Milwaukee for 2025-26, then had the worst year of his career. Following that, he signed a 4-year, \)64M contract.
This is pretty obvious cap circumvention. Trent agreed to sign minimums so that Milwaukee had more flexibility to acquire other players to make another run with Giannis. In return, the Bucks agreed to give Trent a big contract on the back end.
It’s exactly what Minnesota did with Joe Smith, and they got penalized five 1st-round picks.
Seriously. Any damage they would’ve done by reneging on their end of this backroom deal will likely pale in comparison to the league’s punishment.
I think the most reasonable explanation is that if they reneged, the story would come out anyhow via Klutch through whatever channels. Surely someone’s got some sort of receipts. So it’s maybe more kinda extortion than strictly reputational damage… particularly when the reputational damage in that scenario would be based on something that’s both illegal and not strictly provable.
But it’s not like it’s just against the rules for the teams. The agents know they aren’t supposed to be negotiating deals like that either. If it comes out that Klutch was expecting to violate the CBA then that puts them under the microscope as well. It’s more likely they would just privately steer their clients away from the Bucks.
Lol….and yeah what a fumbled mess
I’ve joked that it was punishment enough that the Bucks are saddled with that contract, but nah it looks like the hammer is coming down.
All this BS for Gary Trent Jr Yannis
Right. At least the clips took there shot with someone who was potentially worth it.
Destroying your franchise for Gary Trent Jr is insane.
Listen, if you think you can get 3.7 PPG, 0.3 APG, and 0.3 RPG from someone else for less than $16M/yr, then maybe they should make you the GM.
Joe Smith sequel.
This deal would not have raised any red flags if Gary was even a rotation level player. $15m/y is acceptable for a 6 or 7th best player. There is no investigation if he was a passable bench guy
Gary could be producing more… if only the Bucks didn’t have a logjam at SG- herro, levert, green, burries all in the same role.
Tldr both Gary and the Bucks fault. Beyond the obvious illegality if it. To quote wayne.. be good or be good at it
the Wolves got fucked because they tried to pay Joe Smith under the table lmao
What’s crazy to me is that the Bucks suck right now and they could just play him hero ball to not make it obvious, instead, they benched him lol
“You are missing the point. It isn’t about Trent Jr. “
Imagine losing potentially years worth of draft picks etc over Gary Trent Jr lmao
They could have just snaked him the same way philly did to harden. Philly clearly hasn’t had any longterm impact from it.
If they didn’t follow through there’s a chance GTJ goes to the league on his own and rats them out. Also, there’s the long term impact of breaking that sort of deal with a clutch client and limiting the free agents you can get in the future
If the Bucks get punished Klutch should get banned from the league and all of their negotiated contracts put under a microscope cause clearly they were very involved here too
This is exactly why the Bucks should have called Klutch’s bluff. They aren’t going to get banned from the league over GTJ
Yeah, go to the league and tell on yourself trying to circumvent the cap. LMAO.
As we saw in the Kawhi deal, the player will not be punished in nearly the way the team will. The precedence has been set that the player will be fined, and the league does not appear to want to ruffle the feathers of the NBAPA. A player can ask for whatever under the sun, the onus is on the team to decline and fit within the cap rules, and in the case of delayed payment - that’s likely a team-driven discussion, not a player one.
What do you think is gonna happen to Gary in that scenario?
Kawhi’s punishment was fuckin a 700k fine
I mean, there’s a chance that Trent would’ve been out of the league if they didn’t give him that deal. I could definitely see a player without much to lose going to the league (or at least threatening to) in order to burn the team that went back on a deal
People are so incredibly stupid
So are the Bucks FO tbh
I mean harden basically spent a summer saying the sixers made the promise and backed out and the league didn’t punish them.
PG went to the sixers and now LeBron this summer.
The difference is Harden is (was) a max or near max guy at the time, so getting a max deal would not have been ridiculous either way - even if it would have been a bit of an overpay, he ultimately would have just helped the team on the front end with the first contract, and even then he still got a very large contract. That said he, didn’t sign the “promised” deal anyway, so nothing really actionable for the NBA.
GTJ, on the other hand, took two very small deals for the Bucks when he most definitely could have gotten a bigger/multi year deal in 2024 which I’m sure some other teams were willing to offer. He also signed this “promised” deal which was way above market, so the actionable proof is there.
No player would go nuclear like that. Harden spent a whole summer calling Morey a liar but when the NBA investigated they found no wrongdoing. You think he didn’t have some incriminating texts somewhere?
Have you considered that Harden was probably lying
Promise that doesn’t matter for the Bucks, We weren’t getting useful Klutch free agents either way.
I mean what would happen if he did? Oh I had a handshake agreement with the Bucks to overpay ke in free agency and they didn’t do it? What illegal about that
GTJ would have no grounds to report the Bucks if they didn’t pay him unless there was some concrete evidence that the Bucks had agreed to circumvent the cap. Otherwise it would be a claim with no proof, and the league would just say the idea is illegal anyway so the Bucks did nothing wrong in that scenario.
And never be able to sign a client from the most influential agency in the league again
Philly fired Daryl “the liar” Morey though. The Bucks would have had to fire their guy as well.
And I’d guarantee that literally every Philly fan and front office employee except for maybe one would do the same thing again 100 times out of 100.
I know there was a time Harden didn’t have an agent, was the Philly situation while he still didn’t have one?
Not like many FAs are going to Milwaukee to start with
This is Rich Paul though, who has a lot of clients. It could basically get the bucks blacklisted from getting any of the players who hire him
How fucked up is it where promising to pay under the table and then reneging is okay, but promising and following through results in punishment?
At least make the punishment the exact same.
They could have just snaked him the same way philly did to harden
Yeah, great having bad blood with Rich Paul when your best hope of a MAYBE future star is Berries (repped by Paul)
That’s true. Literally the only reason to do this is to make sure you don’t piss off an agent and stop people from wanting to sign with your team.
76ers did it to a star then got LeBron on a minimum contract regardless lol
Imagine hedging the future success of the franchise, keeping a HOF megastar, and competing for a championship all hinges on…..Gary Trent Jr.
Have a feeling we knew Giannis was leaving when we signed GTJ. Hence this poison pill of a deal.
That’s definitely something a Jimmy Haslam-ran franchise would do
At least the Clippers tried it with Kawhi and PG. Gary Trent Jr. isn’t even the best Gary Trent!
Gary Trent Jr. vs Joe Smith 1v1, when?
Well, it’s really all about Giannis
You are missing the point. It isn’t about Trent Jr.
It’s definitely largely about Gary Trent Jr
It 100% was about keeping Giannis by adding cap space to sign more people.
Like Gary Trent Jr
People such as…Gary Trent Jr? The guy in question? The one they’re being investigated over?
Who did they sign? Who were they going to sign? They gave all that cap space to Gary.
This sub has no nuance or critical thinking skills so don’t waste your time explaining to people who won’t understand
I mean, it definitely is about Gary Trent Jr haha. Of course it’s about a larger problem too and why they were trying to circumnavigate things, but it’s still very much about Gary Trent Jr lmao
But they are not losing draft picks because they wanted to keep him. They are losing them because they wanted to keep Giannis.
You’re being pedantic lol
Well it’s still about GTJ because they decided to give him the bag as if they thought he was a high quality player only to DNP him most of the time in the most obvious “Why would pay this bum that amount of money?” move of all time
They wanted to keep both… they could’ve kept Giannis and not re-signed Gary Trent Jr
they could have just not made good on the deal (not paid him this year, Giannis was already gone anyway)
Just insane to think this wasn’t obvious and would get them in trouble.
The NBA is actually punishing the Bucks for employing Glen Rivers in the year 2026. It was that detrimental to the league’s image…
Now this I agree with
Circumventing cap for kawhi? Sure I kinda get it
Gtj? Lmao
Watch them punish the bucks harder than they did the clips.
They will. The Kawhi money was money the league wasn’t going to see. He was already maxed and they couldn’t pay him more. Trent kept them from paying more luxury tax. That’s money out of billionaires pockets and they don’t put up with that.
It has nothing to do with luxury tax. They would not have been able to sign him in the first place.
They may have had to trade someone. But I’m sure they could have figured out how to sign him. It’s about the tax and penalties that would have occurred by being another 20 mil over the cap. It’s easily over 100+ million in taxes
The Bucks were already deep into the luxury tax when they signed Trent. They literally couldn’t have spent more on free agency. Trading someone doesnt change that. The Bucks could only go deeper into the luxury tax with players already on the roster signing new contracts.
If they traded someone, it means salary going out. Which would mean no impact to luxury tax.
It has nothing to do with tax, they were already a second apron team when they signed him and could only offer him (and anyone) veteran minimums . They could not have simply figured out how to sign him, they had no levers to pull
I think you are reading this situation wrong. From the league’s perspective (aka the other owners’ perspective) cap circumvention while staying within the total bounds of the salary cap is perfectly fine. The Bucks saved money against the cap in 25 but had to pay it out over 26-29, so in sum they don’t end up having to pay out any more cash to players than they would have otherwise.
The Kawhi situation was so bad for owners because it could have set the precedent that maxing out your salary cap expenditures was not enough to sign high end players, that there would be an expectation going forwards that players needed to receive $tens of millions outside of the league-mandated revenue split. The Trent precedent is much less scary for owners in that the worst thing that can happen to them is they have to spend part of their salary cap on unproductive players while still having the same total outlays. I expect it to be punished just because of how incredibly blatant it is, but it doesn’t violate the social contract between owners in nearly the same way.
I don’t know man. Ultimately this is a business for most of the owners. I’m not sure if they really care if ballmer is spending his own money as long as they have an excuse not to spend theirs. Like yeah the second apron penalties are tough but the main deterrent is the tax. I don’t think the owners would care if the spurs maxes all their guys for an unfair advantage as long as they were paying 100s of millions in taxes.
Wow you really don’t wanna admit you’re wrong lol. Everyone is giving you facts and you just keep responding with vibes.
Kawhi did take slightly less than the max actually. There was articles written at the time about how it would help the Clippers build their team.
Its joe smith with the wolves but actually executed
The thing is, the Clippers almost certainly did the exact same thing with Beal lol. So, if that gets investigated, Clippers are extra super duper fucked lol
What a stupid comment lmao
You do realize Beal is still getting paid like 20 million per season from the Suns for the next 4 seasons? Why the fuck would the Clippers try to pay this guy even more under the table
Please explain why they chose Beal over Mathurin
Not the same thing at all. Beal got cut by the suns who still had to pay him out.
This plus swinging at Bucks owners is less risky than at Steve Balmer
Kawhi did actually take a pay cut with one of his extensions.
Bucks owners aren’t on the same level of fuck you money as Ballmer
Not many people are, but Haslem is a minority owner there, and he owns an NFL team
They will. It’s not even a question
They absolutely will not lmfao
I think it’s likely that they will
While the Clippers situation was underhanded, they were still paying Kawhi max money against the Cap. There was no cap savings that the clippers got from paying Kawhi under the table, all it did was ensure he didn’t leave.
With the Bucks, you have a pretty clear case of actual cap circumvention where the team gave Gary Trent a lesser contract that freed up cap space while promising him a bigger contract come the line,
it’s not quite “to ensure he didn’t leave”. they paid him more than other teams in order to sign Kawhi as a free agent. that’s an important difference because the Clippers were willing to break the rules which enabled them to (illegally) offer more money than any other team. leaving the Clippers has nothing to do with it.
I think you are reading this situation backwards.
The key thing to remember is that the NBA salary cap is, to a first approximation, the result of a cartel formed between team owners to control the demand for the services of professional basketball players so that they don’t all bankrupt themselves trying to buy a championship.
From the other owners’ perspective then, cap circumvention while staying within the total bounds of the league-mandated revenue split is perfectly fine. It’s underhanded and I’m sure other FO’s get pissed off if they’re trying to play by the letter of the rules, but it doesn’t violate the social contract between owners to nearly the same extent.
No other owner’s profitability is impacted by the Bucks needing to pay Trent $16 million a year to sit on their bench, but every owner is in danger if they suddenly need to bid for players in a truly open market, especially against someone like Ballmer who is way richer than them and doesn’t seem to care that much about protecting the Clippers’ profit margins
I’m pretty ignorant to the actual rules here so can you or someone explain why this is cap circumvention?
I get that the Bucks said, “take a lesser deal now, and then we’ll pay you more later” but I don’t see why thats an issue. Can a team not go to a player and say, “hey, if you take less money now then we can afford to sign other guys and be in a better spot” or is it specifically the “we will pay you more later” part that’s a problem?
Maybe I’m crazy, but don’t teams do this all the time? I’m pretty sure the term is “golden handshake”.
But at all times the Bucks stayed within the cap. Arguably, the Bucks hamstrung themselves because even though they may have saved money to pay other players while Trent took less, they’re paying for it now by giving him a bloated contract when he obviously stinks.
That part
The only reason they wouldn’t is because it’s not as PR damning as Kawhi, I would argue this is worse as Kawhi is still naturally underpaid in a max environment. Meanwhile this is an IOU contract
I don’t agree. 29 teams didn’t get a shot at Kawhi because the Clippers broke the CBA and didn’t pay him what he was allowed. They also circumvented the salary cap, which has both sporting and financial consequences for players and other teams.
In this case, they paid him an amount they were allowed to on the books, just with a banned deal structure, so the action is far less damaging to the other stakeholders in the league. This deal also pretty much guaranteed the Bucks were going to be bad at some point if not caught, while the Clippers would’ve kept humming along like nothing happened with no future negative ramifications.
They’re both bad. These two cases are the worst things teams can do cap wise. I think paying a player outside the cap completely is worse than illegal deals to pay a player within the cap in the future.
The Bucks also are probably cooperating significantly more than the Clippers were. If the Clips cooperated they would probably be in much better shape.
It’s not as bad for the competitive balance of the league and people do this shit all the time too.
I feel like that makes it less bad than the Kawhi thing. They’re still going to pay him within the rules. It’s just a matter of when they pay him that is illegal
There has to be some sort of smoking gun for that right? Or in the clips case it was just so much smoke they couldn’t ignore it.
The wolves situation had documents proving wrongdoing come out of discovery in a lawsuit between agents
From the CBA:
A violation of Section 2(a) or 2(b) above 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 Section 2(a) or 2(b).
So no smoking gun is required.
3 first rounders it is!
A smoking gun in the definition of circumstantial/inferential, rather than DIRECT, evidence: I may not have seen Joe shoot Frank, but I heard a loud bang and Joe came out of the room holding a smoking gun, therefore I conclude Joe shot Frank. A player being given a contract that cannot rationally be explained is very much like a smoking gun.
Why, that is simply unfair. Adam Silver likely forced Milwaukee to make this deal in order to punish them. He was already investigating Milwaukee last season.
You think Adam Silver forced them to make this deal? What the hell are you talking about lmao
Yes, no gm would be dumb enough to make the GTJ deal. Silver was investigating the Bucks last offseason. Its all part of a plot to relocate us.
Having that contract on payroll is enough punishment
They definitely will, just because it’s worst. They have a lottery team and Trent is still getting dnps. If you’re going to be corrupt at least try to make it look good.
It’s an interesting thing because while the Kawhi situation was unprecedented in scope, giving Kawhi outside money above his max contract didn’t change the Clippers’ ability to bring in other players under the cap… while the Bucks did. I don’t think one is worse than the other, but I could see an argument where the Bucks is more “cheating” than the other.
Yeah it’s interesting because they’re both ‘cheating the salary cap,’ but they’re different situations in some pretty important ways. Will be interesting to see how they handle it.
A big challenge the league has always had with the salary cap rules is the difference between the stars and the role players. These two situations are basically approaching cap circumventing from opposite directions.
Exactly. A lot of people are thinking about this situation purely on an outcome driven lens. Where an irrelevant player didn’t make a difference on the Bucks and they have salary to pay him now.
But we can’t set a precedent that you can sign a minimum to get on a team, and they promise pay you back with a lucrative contract when they have your bird rights.
I think people are thinking about this in terms of what bothers owners more. The Trent circumvention doesn’t affect the owners’ bottom line - the Bucks always spent within the cap, even if they deferred some of that until late (which they are paying for now). The Kawhi circumvention DOES affect their bottom line, because now they’re threatened with the prospect of having to pay top guys tens of millions of extra dollars under the table.
By definition Kawhi is underpaid, most superstar players are not paid their worths to the franchise. Meanwhile GTJ in the past on a minimum was a steal. Now we are figuring out it was a literal steal
He also is now getting roughly average value per year that he got on his deal in Toronto before he signed with the bucks and what he was looking for as a free agent despite having declined as a player since then. Even if he was playing like before it would be fishy with the early bird shenanigans but he’s literally worse
The Bucks one is definitely worse. The Clippers whole thing was more or less okay if Kawhi had made the introductions himself and had just done an appearance for his money.
There’s nothing about this that’s close to okay.
The Clippers thing would still be the same cap circumvention even if Kawhi did any work, because he was being paid (indirectly) by the owner for it. Would’ve looked more legit on the surface though
The Clippers whole thing was more or less okay if Kawhi had made the introductions himself and had just done an appearance for his money.
JFC, how the heck do people still think this is the case after the league published the results? The issue wasn’t that Kawhi didn’t do anything, the issue was that the Clippers were using these “endorsements” to funnel money directly into him. Him doing some advertisements wouldn’t have changed anything because the whole deal were red flags.
How. Everyone wants to see Milwaukee have 0 way to rebuild so they get relocated. Every says Milwaukee is the biggest s…hole
Disagree.
The Clips had at least 4 separate side deals with Kawahi, so there are 4 known violations of the CBA.
The Bucks appear to only have 1 violation of the CBA, so the punishment should be significantly less
It’s an interesting thing because while the Kawhi situation was unprecedented in scope, giving Kawhi outside money above his max contract didn’t change the Clippers’ ability to bring in other players under the cap…
I think sweetheart deals for role players are not uncommon, and I don’t think it’s uncommon to pay superstars under the table to some degree. But Kawhi’s deal was well above and beyond what he could have been paid by the Clippers. Kawhi was effectively getting extra years of max salary, all facilitated by Clippers personnel. That is money he could not have made in the NBA by NBA cap rules.
The Gary Trent deal is undoubtedly cap circumvention that should be punished. But his ultimate payment (that we are aware of) is impacting the Bucks’ salary cap. He’s on MLE money longer than he deserves to be. He’s not receiving his $64M from Culver’s. He is already contributing to the Bucks’ purgatory. If the league strips picks or levees other punishments, that’s probably fair, but I think the Clippers scandal should not be minimized and I don’t think the Bucks should be punished more than the Clippers.
Sure but the Clippers situation let them bring in 2 time finals MVP Kawhi Leonard
The Kawhi thing is kinda weird, though– I don’t think the Clippers were AT ALL innocent, but Kawhi was in the building for almost a year before they actually broke any cap circumvention rules… so I truly believe the bigger issue there was that they were willing to sacrifice the whole future of the franchise to get Paul George than the cap stuff. The league found that Uncle Dennis demanded things in 2019 but that as of the time he signed the only thing the Clippers were guilty of was not reporting Uncle Dennis to the league. LATER ON they definitely circumvented the cap, but Kawhi was already in the building before then.
Jimmy Haslam can’t even be good at being corrupt.
Wait… I’ve not been following here. What’s the story?
2 years ago, Gary Trent Jr was a 25 year old free agent coming off a season where he averaged 13.7 PPG and almost 40% from 3. His previous contract with Toronto had been 3/\(52M and he was assumed to be in line for a similar deal in free agency. He then unexpectedly signed with Milwaukee on a 1 year minimum. This was a boon for Milwaukee, since they were into the luxury tax and had no way to sign Trent to a \)15M+ deal. It was assumed he had just overplayed his hand in free agency and took a 1 year deal to bolster his resume before returning to free agency. He played decently well as a 3 point specialist off the bench for Milwaukee, then unexpectedly re-signed with them for what was essentially a minimum (105% minimum non-Bird offer). He then started falling off a cliff hard last year, so there was speculation he wouldn’t be re-signed by the Bucks in the wake of trading Giannis and he’d be out of the league. Instead, the Bucks gave him a 4/$64M contract in what looks like an obvious Joe Smith redux (sign for a minimum now, we’ll pay you when we have Bird rights later). He’s logged 19 total minutes so far this season despite not being injured.
I’m sure this is an ignorant question: but why is that a violation or the rule? The bucks didn’t have to honor the later pay raise. Didn’t the 76ers try something similar with harden?
The way people are talking in the comments make me feel like I’m missing why this is a big deal.
Basically when the Bucks first signed Gary Trent Jr. they paid him very little, so they could have more cap room and sign more players to help Giannis stay competitive. The reason Trent agreed is because they had an under-the-table handshake deal that they would resign him for a larger contract later. Then the Bucks resigned Gary Trent Jr to the big contract they had promised despite the fact that he was pretty bad for them and had no other offers.
I think he’s getting dnps because of the investigation.
As they should. At least the Clippers cheated to get an all-NBA legendary player. The bucks should be punished harder simply due to their stupidity. If you’re gonna cheat, at least cheat with a 10 instead of a 3 /s
Bucks will be the new Cleveland State
It seems like this situation with the Bucks is much more cut and dry and easy to prove. There’s no 3rd parties involved, just straight up internal cap circumvention
As they should. The clips still paid a max to Kawhi, the only advantage they got was him coming in in the first place. The bucks cheated the cap blatantly allowing them to sign more players
The NBA version of “the NCAA has given Missouri the death penalty.”
Imagine getting Clipper’d over Gary Trent
You know what makes me sick is we already lost a 2nd round pick for espn announcing the bogie deal before it could be. Shit the lakers actively talk to the press about more and worse. Sorry we won a chip as a small market. We get it silver. Now fuck right off unless you have hard actually evidence and not just hearsay.
They really should. Kawhi was already being paid the max. It was salary circumvention in that they paid players above the max under the tables. But this is worst, this was straight up salary cap manipulation.
Why shouldn’t they. Kawhi took a \(5m cut. GTJ took a \)10-15m cut.
we are 1-10 bro please leave us alone
We already have to suffer with being an ass team with barely any draft capital through the rest of the decade…alongside stuff like Kuzma hopping on X to rant about politics within 2 hours of getting fist fucked by the Knicks. What more punishment do we need?
Maybe Silver forces us to trade or wave Burries and Ament.
Kirko bout to play for pistons and stunt of you hoes
Dog dick y’all in football and basketball
Move to Vegas idk
2021 title stripped and banner removed.
They’re gonna strip us of the inaugural NBA cup banner
Wasn’t that the Lakers?
That would be way too far.
We can go lower
1-10 means we left one on the board. There’s room for improvement. Strive for greatness.
I’d be okay with this if we owned our FRP this season. We’re just ass for the love of the game lol
You guys are ass because they actually incentivized tanking more. If you don’t own your own frp you want to go 0-82
you have more kyle kuzma tweets to look forward to aswell 😭😭
Hey Kings are 1-10 without cheating, no excuses
No
(I say this angry about the “1” in the 1-10)
“No 😈” - Adam Silver, probably
Cheating is cheating, time to pay the price.
They’re taking away that 1 win
The shame is that the more stories about this that are written, the harder the NBA will have to come down.
Surely breaking the record for least amount of wins is enough of a punishment.
Crazy how this is you guys now. I stopped watching for a few yrs. U used to have giannis and were contenders and after a couple of yrs this is you guys now
I don’t know what they’re talking about. Those 6 minutes he played yesterday when the Bucks were down 28 in the 4th quarter were all I needed to see to know how vital he is to this team.
For real though, imagine nuking your franchise for Gary Trent Jr. after Giannis is on his way out.
If this deal occured it was probably done right after his playoff run vs the Pacers. And he was phenomenal for those games. Had the all time record for 3 pointers in the playoffs for the Bucks one game with 9. He just fell off a cliff last season
Imagine doing that, and then shining a flashing light that what you’re accused of is exactly what you did by actively not playing him.
That’s what I don’t understand. They’ve handled this like they are completely ignorant of the obvious implications of their decisions.
They had to know they’d be investigated after giving out this deal. Reneging on their handshake deal and taking the agent fallout had to be a better option than nuking your whole franchise, right??
They had to know it would look significantly worse if they benched GTJ. Just play him over Kuzma. Again, whatever weird dynamics that would in the locker room has to be better than nuking your franchise.
Agreed, either of your ideas would at least mitigate the damage. But the Bucks picked literally the worst possible option.
Because they know they’re getting fined, and Jenkins has no reason to play guys who suck.
What I’ve heard is that Gary is the only person holding the locker room together through this bad stretch. His leadership has been invaluable in mentoring the young guys.
Not sure what the league is talking about, he’s already earned every penny and might be underpaid. 😂
Unless Rich Paul has juicy blackmail over the Bucks front office, I cannot understand what logic went into giving Gary Trent Jr. $64 million. Did they really just want to fill their cap space and burn money for the sake of it?
I imagine the logic is not pissing off Klutch sports. We’re not exactly a free agent destination and Klutch reps a bunch of dudes in the nba including our rookie Burries
Does Klutch and Rich Paul get ANY type of repercussions in this? They’re clearly playing the Uncle Dennis role.
Yeah, both the player and the agent has to sign something saying that basically says there’s no shady/illegal stuff occurring behind the scenes that would motivate them to take this contract.
Rich Paul could potentially end up suspended for a certain amount of time, which would impact a significant part of the league. Not just Milwaukee and Trent.
To clarify a bit, the agent and player don’t sign a standalone doc/affidavit attesting to no cap circumvention in connection with a particular contract signing. You’re essentially right but only the player and team sign the contract, which binds both to the rules of the NBA and CBA (the legal doc which prohibits cap circumvention and allows the NBA to punish violations - signed by the NBA (on behalf of the owners) and the NBPA (on behalf of the players)). Outside of the contract signing context, the owners/teams and the players are always bound by the CBA.
However, since agents aren’t a party to the CBA, the NBA needs some way to otherwise bind and subject them to the rules of the league and CBA. They do so by requiring every agent to be certified with the NBPA, and each agent must sign NBPA certification agreements as part of the process. These certification agreements bind agents to the NBPA rules and the CBA.
That said, Rich Paul can/will absolutely get punished if Trent is found guilty. And I actually think punishments should go further - extending to the actual agencies if there are repeat violations. I think this would almost completely stop any cap circumvention shenanigans because the agents are incentivized not to cheat and make sure the that everything is being done above board. If an agent cheats the cap, then the risk of getting all other nba agents at their agency in trouble/suspended is a good deterrent.
God I would love this. I hate that prick
I don’t think Rich Paul was the particular agent involved in this contract. Klutch is more than 1 agent. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, I have no idea what the league can/cannot do as far as punishing agents, maybe they do go after rich paul too?
But someone from Klutch is definitely getting the hammer from this.
GTJ signed on a minimum during the Giannis Saga when the Bucks had no way to get talent in otherwise. This contract pays him back.
Don’t forget that people working for these organizations are not filthy rich and even few million under the counter is huge for a lot of them.
They’re rebuilding anyways and want guys who understand that. There’s a salary floor that they have to hit too!
I wonder if the league has the balls to punish Rich Paul
If they punish the Bucks, his agent should also be punished for tabling the shady agreement.
Oh shit I didn’t realize Rich Paul was Gary’s agent. Shit, we good. League ain’t doing shit to a Klutch client.
Yeah coz he’s so much more powerful and influential than Balmer
If the league has to dish out punishment, and it can’t be to Klutch or Gary… “We good” is not how I’d be feeling as a bucks fan.
If they had the balls to punish Ballmer, they certainly should to punish Paul.
If the Bucks are going down for this they better look at all the other Klutch deals too. It would be silly to think these type of arrangements aren’t commonplace for his clients.
For what? It’s the responsibility of the team to stay within the salary cap, not the players or their agents
Players and their agents are very much responsible for cap circumvention. Kawhi only got a token fine because the league wanted to close the players association filing for arbitration option as the Clippers cannot challenge the league ruling. But he did get dinged.
Explicit Prohibition: Article 13 of the NBA CBA explicitly states that players (or people acting on their behalf, such as business managers or family members) are prohibited from entering into unauthorized agreements, soliciting hidden financial inducements, or accepting third-party payments designed to bypass salary cap rules.
Amazing what simple searches can produce.
For negotiating an illegal deal? Tf?
Rich Paul kinda did nothing to warrant a punishment from the league ?
The Bucks are just dumb as fuck.
Rich Paul would have been the agent making the illegal deal?
Rich Paul is Gary Trent Jr’s agent, he negotiated the contracts
Agent engaged in negotiating the illegal contract arrangement to circumvent the cap for his client
Agents have to agree to follow the rules to be licensed with the Players Association. That’s why Uncle Dennis got suspended.
they still banned Kawhi’s uncle even though he didn’t do anything more than negotiate his client more money, maybe if they believe Rich Paul was a part in orchestrating cap circumvention for the Bucks maybe they ban him, if they have the balls to move against Lebron friend and agent
Will they.
If uncle Dennis got punished for putting together the Kawhi deal then there’s no way Rich Paul should avoid punishment in this situation
He should also be punished if they find his agency agreed to the under the table deal, the team doesn’t conduct deals directly with the players it’s through their agents.
Rich Paul negotiated the contract lol. He was 100% in on it
If Rich Paul was personally aware of / facilitated any of this, he can get punished too. I think the player’s association handles agents though, Joe Smith’s agent got a 6 month suspension back then.
Having multiple years of NBA Draft 1st rounds with 28 picks is gonna be hilarious.
League’s gonna expand but the draft won’t.
Must’ve blacked out and missed that announcement
Clippers 2: Electric Boogaloo
Watch them only get one pick taken and it’s a second rounder ☠️😭
A very fair and good punishment in my unbiased opinion.
I don’t see how this can warrant a worse or even punishment to the Clippers. Sure, it’s clear cap circumvention but it’s (1) probably not clearly provable in writing and (2) this is still within the scope of normal NBA deals, not a series of no show contracts and other fraud committed to pay a guy completely outside the scope of an NBA contract.
I don’t see how this can warrant a worse or even punishment to the Clippers
They literally got him at less than market value because of the now-obvious promise to pay him the difference later, when it didn’t impact their championship pursuit. If you don’t see how this is worse than what the Clippers did, you just don’t care about the competitive integrity of the league.
The Clippers used a third party to illegally pay Kawhi more than any other team could offer him, you’re nuts if you don’t see how that is worse.
Fair.
Clippers 2: Electric Buckaloo
Boogerloo
Brought to you by the network that told us the Clippers were exonerated.
And the guy that doesn’t know the lottery rules
Everything bucks related for the last 3 years windhorst has been dead wrong on so forgive me if I don’t believe a word he says.
Pretty much.
Good news is with the new stupid lottery, the Bucks were probably getting the 9th pick anyway
They don’t have a pick until 2031. Two were outright traded. The others are pick swaps.
So you’re telling me the Suns don’t have the worst future in the league?
Ahem…
At least Acuff has been a dawg for y’all.
The only thing good going for Phoenix is that Devin Booker enjoys Arizona and somehow hasn’t requested out. (I’m sure his bank account has a bit to do with that)
There’s always the Clippers
You guys have almost all your FRPs, have a ton of cap space starting next year, and you guys have Acuff. Your only issue is incompetent ownership and a terrible coach.
Prolly still do, you have to pay booker 300mil
Depends on which one of us stops digging first
Imagine they don’t pick again til 2040. They have to find some other punishment tbh. Just relocate the team and start over at that point.
If it’s such a big deal they need to force the owners to sell the team.I’m sure you vultures would love to see the team leave.
All this for a non-impact player. Some NBA front offices are really stupid
It’s moreso for the agent/agency than for the player, if they didn’t keep their word agents would steer their players away from the bucks
No free agents where signing with Milwaukee. Milwaukee should be building exclusively through the draft.
And now they’ll stay away coz it will be a dumpster fire of a team. Sometimes Rich Paul be wanting to party but you gotta say no.
He wasn’t thought to be a non-impact player two years ago
There had been no indicators for years, but I am starting to think maybe the Bucks front office is a complete mess.
Having a true generational talent covers up a lot of stank.
Makes you forget about whiffing on every trade aside from the one to get Jrue and literally every draft pick after Giannis
Also every draft pick besides Giannis
Can’t we just collectively agree that being the Bucks is punishment enough?
If that didn’t work for Clippers it definitely won’t for the Bucks
Maybe the teams should be forced to merge to become the Milwaukee Clippers
Fun fact, that was the second choice when the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students voted for their new team name in the 1960’s. We would have had the Milwaukee Clippers long before San Diego/LA.
If that isn’t a sign of destiny I don’t know what is
I was about to go on a rant about what significance Clipper ships would have with Milwaukee. Pretty sure Clipper ships weren’t sailing Lake Michigan. But I looked it up and I guess it’s a reference to a specific ship called the SS Milwaukee Clipper which was a ferry on Lake Michigan.
They won a championship 5 years ago, they’re fine.
Yeah even if we lose picks and suck for 15 years it was all worth it for the championship
Just be thankful that the funky contract business happened after the championship so no one can say shit about it
Oh yes I’m thankful.
I’m still honestly glad the Bucks mortgaged their future to try to get one more with Giannis too. He was a generational player and the greatest Bucks player ever so I wanted full all in.
But we might’ve went a little too far on the mortgaging and took out a HELOC and reverse mortgage by a couple handshake deals with a bench level player in GTJ but that was after the fact haha. Banner still flies
Punishment is they have to give that back to the team they beat.
The atlanta hawks?
Detroit Pistons
Bucks could be in a worse spot, look at the Pelicans or Kings.
They aint the Bobcats or the Magic, chill.
Being inept shouldn’t excuse cheating.
The NBA will come down hard on the Bucks, triggering further decline in attendance and merchandise sales which ends up with Haslam eating the poison pill on the Fiserv contract so he can move the Bucks to a more profitable city in about 5 years.
Punishment should be based around process/intent rather than results imo, especially in a scenario like this where the punishment also acts as a deterrent for other teams
Disagree it should be based on results so more or less screw the Bucks for the mext 25 years and make sure they cant rebuild just to make an example. As a Bucks fan I will never watch an NBA game again.
The fact so many people in this thread don’t understand why this is a problem is worrying to me lmao.
Because half of this sub are high school kids lol
This! I start to argue and then realize I’m old enough to be their dad
Yep. Its very disappointing seeing the vast majority of people here being born after the 2010s, having no clue how much better life was without all this social media crap, and how something like Basketball discourse being more than just memes.
The trolls from these children is also a big problem.
Too many children or people with the maturity of children who thinking lying and making excuses is enough to get you out of trouble even though the intent to violate the rules was clear.
Why pay a bad player tons of money? What’s the benefit from doing this? I’m genuinely confused
Because we got away with paying him less earlier. We circumvented the cap to build a stronger team earlier.
It’s because they didn’t know he would be bad when they allegedly promised him this contract two years ago.
But it’s the promise itself that is illegal
I mean, I doubt they thought he’d be good. It was done to get more help for Giannis.
It was done to circumvent the cap to get more help for Giannis. Which is cheating.
Fixed that for you.
Educational system is very good.
man, sad so see how many people are saying this, lol
The former NFL union president that Pablo had on did a pretty good job of explaining it from a union perspective, it’s worth a listen
Every once in awhile a post will appear on a sub that exposes how stupid the community is.
That’s happening right before our eyes with this post.
I understand why it’s a problem but it’s just hypocritical/slippery slope to me that they’ve let all these teams including the Bucks do this for eons and haven’t done anything about it until now. If they have actual evidence beyond common sense, that’s one thing, but if they’re going to punish the Bucks just because it looks bad when they’ve looked the other way in so many cases in the past, that just doesn’t seem right to me.
You have somewhat of a point, but I’d say this case is just blatantly obvious to the point it warranted an investigation. If it had been just slightly less absurd it likely doesn’t reach that point
It’s way worse than what the clippers did.
Kawhi was already getting the max contract so taking more money didn’t impact the teams cap situation or chances of winning. Trent allowed the Bucks to make a more competitive roster around Giannis in his last few years there. Not sure how anyone can look at that and think it’s not as bad.
They circumvented the salary cap. The Clippers are fucking cheaters man, it doesn’t matter what other teams do.
Kawhi and Gary Trent aren’t exactly on the same level.
It isn’t about just him, it’s that it provided cap flexibility it shouldn’t have.
At worst Kawhi might have signed elsewhere or just accepted the max. The Trent situation gave Milwaukee the chance to sign any player with the cap space they illegally created.
Edit. Apparently it was more to avoid paying tax it seems. Which is still the same thing. You have gained something you wouldn’t otherwise have by cheating. But does probably move it closer to Kawhi than worse than.
It is about him 😂 “at worst Kawhi might have signed elsewhere.” So a guy capable of leading a team to the championship wouldn’t have been on the Clippers if they didn’t offer him a ton of money off the books? Sounds pretty consequential to me. Meanwhile, the Bucks, who already have no real future for the next five+ years, are now stuck overpaying Trent (one of the most ass players in the league) so they could throw more money at…Myles Turner? The worst contract in basketball? Being such a small market city that the league does next-to-nothing to support, Milwaukee is far less capable of paying the luxury tax than the Clippers…which makes the Kawhi debacle all the more egregious: Balmer already had more money to throw at players than any other team, and it wasn’t enough? Fuck that.
Can you explain it? I’m 36 with a degree and I haven’t heard an explanation. All I know is that Gary Trent Jr. got a contract that was way too much for how good of a player he is. I don’t understand how that breaks the rules or why it even would help the Bucks or any team for that matter to overpay a player?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/iVZWRzQE6L
This comment explains it well
Bucks should frame this as extortion/blackmail from Klutch sports
Bucks didn’t have to pay.
Just trade their best players to the Lakers for Bronny. The league will look the other way at anything then.
They wouldn’t be entirely wrong
Bingo.
The insane part is that before the contract there were rumors of them doing this and people said if the bucks sign Trent they will be investigated. Then they still did it anyway
Adam Silver forced them to this part a larger conspiracy.
didn’t Milwaukee get fined a 2nd rounder a couple years for tampering? Bogdonavic?
We also had a draft trade fall apart because Woj leaked who we were going to pick before we traded back to get him. The Hawks saw it was Divincenzo rather than Huerter and they backed out and took Huerter a pick or two later.
Today is “Shut the Fuck Up” Friday. In fact, every day is “Shut the Fuck Up” Friday.
Yes lol, I guess it’s kinda worked for them.
Iirc, they won the title that season.
They were going to make both trades. The cancelling is what got them Bobby though
My bad, misremembered
Nah we were going to be getting Jrue and Bogi…Jrue even started following Bogi on IG before Woj pulled the plug lol
Why was his contract so large? Couldn’t they have made it 40-50 million instead? Like I know it’s because of the under-the-table deal with Klutch Sports, but his play was so bad that they could’ve still gave a large enough contract that’s not 64 million
Real question is why aren’t they just starting him and going with the “we are incompetent” defense?
If you were gonna lose all your picks why trade Giannis for picks?
Lots of odd things happening here
This is truly what I don’t get. He’s not injured either. Play him 28-30mins a game and just say we’re dumb.
It’s very stupid. He’s not that bad. Play him some minutes, he’ll put up some counting stats. Then next year you can say he regressed and not play him.
They have as much deluded confidence in themselves as Ballmer and the Clippers FO did. Literally anyone would a brain would be giving GTJ as much playtime as possible in this scenario.
Coach’s job is on the line, Jenkins is not incentivized to play players he doesn’t think help them win. It’s actually nice for us that coaches and front offices incentives aren’t perfectly aligned in situations like these.
Yeah, this is my biggest question. You just started a rebuild where picks are your most important asset and you’re about to be stripped of a few because you refuse to play a guy 15-20 minutes a game? Just seems idiotic by the front office to not force the coach to give him a minimum amount of minutes
I think they’re scared his contract is gonna be voided. No point in playing him heavy minutes then when the team has a bunch of young guards that need minutes for development
Bucks have no chance of winning a championship in the next 5 years. Maybe they want to develop the young guys? Don’t see why not playing him much is that relevant. Maybe he’s been lazy and not playing well in practice?
The coaching staff is insulated from these shenanigans right now. Why would they play a terrible player and lose more games and piss off the team and implicate themselves in the circumvention? I’m sure the FO/ownership would prefer if he plays but they can only push so hard without further implicating themselves. It’s also largely a moot point because this contract drew suspicion from the day it was signed.
Yeah it’s not like they’re winning games without him. It doesn’t make sense to not just play him and claim that they’d had conversations with him before they gave him the deal where they believed he was going to take a huge step up this year for them and if his minutes drop after you’ve been playing him, you can just say you made a mistake.
it all makes sense when they are stupid
That’s the point, they could not lol
Because if it’s back pay for the previous years they’d be short changing him. Really they should be trying to seem incompetent / that they thought he’d be worth that much and start him or something.
Horst got us a ship and I’ll be forever grateful for that. But THIS and the Turner move are downright wretched decisions.
How tf did they not see this coming? You’d think there would be one rational person in their FO that would be like, hmm maybe we should think about how this might look…
Once Trent became unplayable they were up a creek.
At that point they might as well have just transferred crypto to an overseas account to him.
I wonder if the bucks can say , we can’t get a FA so it has to be trade , so we will need contracts to be able to trade for a starAnd Gary is a good locker room guy
lol worth a shot
Imagine getting your lucrative NBA career stripped away from you for giving a backroom deal to fucking Gary Trent Jr 😭
I can’t even follow this league anymore. I have no idea what this is even about.
At least the clippers did what they did for kawhi leonard. Bucks about to be send to the shadow realm for Gary Trent Jr lmao
I didn’t think Rich Paul would be this stupid lol, they should get a big penalty
That man is walking hubris so I am not surprised.
It’s pretty fascinating to be honest. He oozes arrogance without being a pompous asshat. I can only imagine how many shady dealings he’s been apart of but has slipped under the radar.
without being a pompous asshat
Have you seen his podcast clips?
Putting yourself in the same tier with Steph and Klay (unironically) as a shooter satisfies most criteria for being a pompous asshat from my point of view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npb8K1uyoZE
He does seem like a pompous asshat though? I’ve only ever seen him from clips of his podcast but that’s how he comes off. Not sure I read your comment right
I’d be actin like hot shit too if I was able to bag Adele. No but seriously, walking hubris
Adele fell a lot of notches in my book when she started seeing that douchebag
A bag would come in handy if one were to sleep with Adele.
Dude
I would have agreed before i listened to his podcast.
You got a point lol
Would Rich Paul get in trouble? I know the contract could be forfeited, but the won’t take away his agent license or suspend him right?
Joe Smith’s agent was suspended for doing the same exact thing.
Rich Paul is Gary Trent’s uncle Dennis
Big difference between saying “sign my client and give me a penthouse” vs saying “sign my client for cheap now but make it up to him long term”. Both are against the rules, but different.
Exactly what I said haha. I’m hope he gets suspended. Tired of that prick always having his finger on the scale
CBA says the league can direct the Player’s Association to decertify agents who participate in circumvention for up to a year.
Brewers won their first WS so someone in Wisconsin has to suffer.
The bucks did this with Bobby Portis as well
Where I get hung up at with this whole thing is that the Bucks had 2 years of eye test to see that Trent was dog shit. Couldn’t the Bucks have simply.. not paid him and nobody would’ve thought twice about it? Unless they had something in writing where they were fucked either way it makes no sense to have signed him if they could’ve let him walk
Gary Trent Jr is represented by Rich Paul and Klutch Sports. Renegging on promises would put the Bucks on the blacklist for signing any players in the future that Klutch represents.
Not saying that isn’t the right logic, but I mean…if he goes out on the open market does he get anywhere close to that deal? Does he even get a deal that isn’t the minimum? I don’t think Klutch would’ve had much to stand on anyways regardless of their presence in the league
We were desperate for shooting and just decent role players that year and we were still pretty expensive. He took that crazy low deal which I think felt us sign another guy as well.
Can someone give me some context? I know trent jr wss given a crazy contract and isn’t playing. What exactly is the issue there besides the FO being ass?
The Bucks wanted to add talent around Giannis/Dame, but didn’t have enough cap space to add meaningful upgrades. The allegation is that Milwaukee and GTJ agreed to sign two consecutive minimum contracts in order to establish Bird rights, and once those were established GTJ would sign a larger, longer contract to make up the difference. That sort of deal is explicitly banned in the CBA, and although there are allegations of similar behavior from other teams those are usually justifiable enough that the league can’t justify punishing them (sans a Wolves-esque written agreement). The sheer size of the contract relative to his performance, the fact that league insiders had been talking about the Bucks giving Trent that contract since ~mid-March, and the fact that Trent has barely played in spite of the contract makes it really hard for Milwaukee to argue that this isn’t cap circumvention
Also, this may have flown under the radar if Trent had just played better last year and kinda sorta justified the new contract. Don’t cheat the CBA with sucky players.
The contract is also justifiable if they let GTJ play 30 mins per game.
I think to my minimal understanding he took vet mins or low contracts over the past few years with the incentives the bucks were going to pay him. I think him taking those contracts was to help bring in more guys but then GA peaced out. Realistically just play the man, the rookies and clean house for picks. They have interesting pieces right now but they are light years away from anything
He took smaller contracts when they didn’t have his bird rights so he wouldnt impact the cap much while they were trying build around giannis. Giannis is now gone and they have Gary’s bird rights so they gave him a contract that doesnt match his previous production and is likely a recoup for those smaller deals.
Can’t they just pretend they’re stupid and only realised he doen’t fit their team after they gave him the contract?
Presumably they would have needed more than 19 minutes of court time to make that assessment
I mean they can just say he hasn’t impressed at practice, others have been better, he doesn’t fit coaches style of play….
The contract was almost certainly negotiated ahead of time, and he took a smaller contract with the understanding that they would pay him later.
Which is one of the biggest no-nos of salary cap evasion, see Joe Smith’s situation with the Timberwolves in 2000
MN lost 5 first round picks for this. I should expect nothing less
I mean they had conclusive proof there tho. You’d hope the bucks weren’t that dumb
I feel like it’ll be fairly easy for the nba to say, so why did you pay a player 15x his market value? And the bucks simply won’t have a good answer. And then the next question would be, so why did you pay him 15x above his market value, and still decide you are gonna have him ride the bench?
They just gave him \(64m and he's buried on the bench. He's not even a part of their rotation. It's going to be really hard to argue that they gave him \)64m for anything other than a previous agreement.
Then that guarantees they have 0 way to rebuild just disband the team then. Make them trade their rookies as well leave the fan base with 0 hope.
Who cares? They tried to cheat. There’s a precedence on how this has been handled.
he was worth this contract when he first got to the bucks. but took a vet min for two seasons. and then dropped in value significantly and is now basically unplayable. So he’s the worst he’s been in his career, they aren’t even playing him after giving him the big contract. So it is pretty obvious, they told him they would pay him in years to come if he signed for a vet min in years past. Whether or not they find proof of it, is the question.