Gary Trent Jr. agrees to four-year, $64 million contract with Milwaukee Bucks: Sources

The Milwaukee Bucks are signing Gary Trent Jr. to a four-year, $64 million contract, league sources confirmed to The Athletic. The contract is fully guaranteed with no options. ESPN was first to report the signing.

Trent, 27, averaged 8.1 points per game last season, while playing only 21.2 minutes per game, in 65 appearances for the Bucks. It was the fewest points and minutes Trent averaged since his rookie season. Considering Trent’s performance waned and he played just 1,377 minutes (his fewest since the 2019-20 season), the length and size of the contract make it a curious decision for the Bucks.

Rival executives have been anticipating this deal for months now, with many predicting that the Bucks would reward Trent Jr. handsomely for his choice to sign a minimum-salary contract last summer when he was coming off of a strong first season in Milwaukee. Yet considering what transpired since then, with Trent Jr. falling out of former coach Doc Rivers’ rotation amid the Bucks’ disastrous season, the notion of the Bucks paying this sort of premium for his services is widely seen as confounding.

Last offseason, our John Hollinger’s BORD$ valuations suggested Trent’s play was worth roughly $14 million dollars on the open market. This offseason, Hollinger’s BORD$ valuations believe Trent’s play would be a fine value at the minimum, but didn’t suggest any value higher than that.

After three-and-a-half seasons with the Raptors, Trent signed a minimum contract to join the Bucks before the 2024-25 campaign with the team selling him on the idea reuniting with Damian Lillard, who Trent played with during his first two-and-a-half seasons in Portland, and spread the floor as a high-volume 3-point shooter for Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Trent saw his scoring average decrease in his first season in Milwaukee, but he shot 41.6 percent from 3 and averaged 11.1 points per game in the regular season before putting up a strong performance in the Bucks’ first-round series against the Indiana Pacers. Following two 30-point games against the Pacers, league sources told The Athletic that they expected the first-year value of Trent’s contract to be between $8-10 million heading into the offseason, which made Trent signing a minimum contract for the 2025-26 season a surprise.

Now, after considerably less production in his second season, the Bucks have opted to give him a much larger contract than expected and that has raised eyebrows around the NBA.

While Trent lost his footing in the rotation of former head coach Doc Rivers last season, he was an incredibly productive player before getting to Milwaukee and did well in his role in his first season in Milwaukee.

At 27 years old, Trent is still young enough to perform at a much higher level than he did this past season with the Bucks, but it would require a much bigger role and better play.