‘Everybody in the league expects a guilty finding’: the Bucks could lose draft picks and Jon Horst over Gary Trent Jr.’s $64 million deal

The NBA has not said a word about its investigation into Gary Trent Jr.’s $64 million contract since September. Around the league, people have already decided how it ends. “I’ll just put it this way: everybody in the league expects a guilty finding in Gary Trent,” Brian Windhorst said on Wednesday’s Hoop Collective. “If that doesn’t happen, it will be an upset.”

Bobby Marks, the former Nets executive who now tracks the salary cap, laid out what a guilty finding would mean, using the two biggest circumvention cases in league history as the guide. “If we’re going on past precedent, and we can go back to Minnesota with Joe Smith, and we can go back to the Clippers stuff from this summer, if they are found guilty, there are going to be draft picks stripped, and people are going to be suspended indefinitely for a long time here,” he said.

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

"Everybody in the league expects a guilty finding."

"If they are found guilty, there are going to be draft picks stripped and people… pic.twitter.com/4PE8Wqpl3R

— NBABase (@TheNBABase) November 11, 2026

Why the contract drew the league’s attention

Trent’s salary history is the case. He signed with Milwaukee for the veteran’s minimum, about $2.6 million, in 2024. After a productive first season he came back in 2025 for $3.7 million, a small raise the Bucks could give him with his Non-Bird rights. Two years with the same team gave Milwaukee his Early Bird rights, which let a team go over the cap to re-sign its own player for far more.

This July the Bucks used those rights to give him a fully guaranteed four-year, $64 million deal, an average of $16 million a season. It came after the worst year of his career: 8.1 points a game on 38.7% shooting. The question for investigators is whether the two cheap contracts came with a promise that the big one was coming. Under the collective bargaining agreement, any unwritten understanding about a future contract is illegal.

Timing made it look worse. The deal was agreed on July 11, when most of the league’s cap space and open roster spots were already gone. Rival executives have said that a similar agreement in June or the first days of July might have been written off as a bad read of the market. Signed when nobody else could bid much, it looked like a payment.

The league opened its review in July. Its usual outside firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, was still working on the Clippers case, so the NBA hired the investigations firm Hecker Fink instead. In September a league spokesperson said only that the probe was ongoing. The Bucks and Klutch Sports Group, which represents Trent, are both cooperating. There is still no public timeline, and neither the team nor the player has been found to have broken any rule.

What the precedents cost

	Timberwolves (2000)	Clippers (2026)
Case	Secret deal promising Joe Smith a future contract	Endorsement deals arranged for Kawhi Leonard with team business partners
Draft picks	Five first-round picks forfeited (two later returned)	Five first-round picks forfeited, 2029 to 2033
Fine	$3.5 million	$30 million, the largest in NBA history
Suspensions	Owner Glen Taylor suspended; Kevin McHale took a leave	Owner Steve Ballmer for one year; Gillian Zucker one year; Lawrence Frank six months
Contract	Smith’s deal voided	Leonard ordered to pay the league $700,000

The Clippers penalties, announced on Sept. 2, are the fresh benchmark. The NBA found a “pattern of misconduct” and noted the Clippers were already a prior offender. The Bucks would not be, but the Trent case is closer to the Minnesota one than to the Clippers. There were no outside companies involved, only a player, a team and a contract number. Ballmer is serving his suspension through the 2026-27 season, and the Clippers have publicly rejected the findings. That is one reason the panel expects the league to be firm with Milwaukee. If it is lighter on a similar promise, the Clippers will notice.

Jon Horst and a 1-10 start

The people most exposed are in the front office. “I don’t want anybody to lose their job, but Jon Horst is facing a disastrous situation with this team where he might be getting suspended,” Windhorst said of Milwaukee’s general manager. He also said the Bucks are listening on everyone: “The belief is basically, hey, you’re interested in somebody on the roster, let’s talk. Like, everybody on the roster is believed to be available in the trade market.”

Milwaukee is one of three teams at 1-10 in the NBA going into Wednesday night. Trent was a healthy scratch on opening night and has been a fringe part of the rotation since. The panel noted that the Bucks already have little control over their own future first-round picks because of past trades, so any picks the league takes would come out of an already thin supply. Windhorst called a Horst opening “potentially the worst general manager opening in decades.” Tim MacMahon went further: “You call this the danger zone. I call this hell.”

For the rest of the league, the ruling matters for one more reason. After the Clippers’ season under the penalty, a guilty finding in Milwaukee would make two circumvention cases in one year, and every team that has signed a player cheaply and paid him later would be watching how the NBA draws the line.