The Milwaukee Bucks may be in one of the worst spots in the NBA. They just traded Giannis Antetokounmpo, and even more recently, they handed Gary Trent Jr. a four-year, $64 million contract that is now under investigation by the NBA. And according to Marc Stein of The Stein Line, who spoke about the situation on the All-NBA Podcast, the Trent deal just made Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard situation even worse.
Milwaukee already owes Lillard over $21.5 million for each of the next four season. That puts the Bucks at an immediate disadvantage, effectively giving them a third apron that other teams don’t have to dela with. Now, they are going to have to pay Trent on top of that, giving them even less flexiblity to work.
From a financial perspective – and a roster perspective – the Bucks are in an ugly, ugly spot right now.
Gary Trent Jr. contract makes Damian Lillard money even worse
Last summer, the Bucks made a decision that was questioned by many: They waived and stretched Lillard’s contract after he tore his Achilles in the playoffs. Then, they signed Myles Turner in free agency.
It was the largest waive and stretch situation in NBA history, tripling the previous record, which was held by Nicolas Batum. Now, Lillard is back with the Portland Trail Blazers but still making a ton of money from the Bucks.
With how restrictive the CBA is in today’s NBA, having dead money on the books is always a brutal reality to deal with. And right now, the Bucks have a very healthy heaping of it.
But they somehow managed to make the situation even worse this summer, as they decided to hand Trent a massive contract for seemingly no reason at all.
The NBA is about to investigate the deal because of how suspicious it is. Trent has been playing on minimums for years, so the theory is that Milwaukee had a handshake agreement with him to give him a bigger deal when they could afford it. But now, it looks weird.
So, not only are the Bucks paying Lillard a ton of money each year to not play for them, but they are also going to be paying a ton of money to Trent to play at a minimum-contract level.
It’s bad. It’s really bad. The Lillard situation was already ugly, but now, the Bucks have managed to make it worse. They have way too much bad money on their books.
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