The NBA’s salary-cap investigation into Gary Trent Jr.’s new Milwaukee Bucks contract has now drawn in Klutch Sports Group, the agency representing the guard. According to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon, Klutch is cooperating with league investigators as they examine whether Trent’s four-year, $64 million guaranteed deal, signed in July, violated the NBA’s salary rules. The Bucks are also cooperating with the investigation.

Klutch was founded by Rich Paul, who represents LeBron James, making the agency’s involvement another notable detail in an investigation that has emerged alongside the NBA’s recent case involving the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard.

To look into Trent’s contract, the NBA brought in national investigations law firm Hecker Fink. The league usually turns to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz for this type of work, but it now has two cap-circumvention investigations taking place at the same time.

The NBA has confirmed that the investigation into Trent is still active but has not provided further details. The Bucks and Klutch Sports have declined to comment publicly, while two sources familiar with the interviews told The Athletic that both are cooperating.

Klutch’s Role Sets This Case Apart From the Clippers Investigation

The Trent investigation has been running since July, largely out of the public eye, and now overlaps with the fallout from the NBA’s case against the Clippers and Leonard.

The two cases involve different questions.

In the Clippers case, the NBA found that the team had circumvented the salary cap through outside employment contracts for Leonard and additional benefits. One of those arrangements involved Aspiration, a now-bankrupt environmental company that gave Leonard a contract worth nearly $28 million even though he did no tangible work for the company. League investigators later found evidence involving four outside companies, along with impermissible benefits provided to Leonard and his family.

The focus in Trent’s case is different. Investigators are trying to determine whether the Bucks and the guard deliberately structured his earlier contracts with a larger payday already understood to be coming later.

Trent signed two previous contracts with Milwaukee in the summers of 2024 and 2025. His first deal was for the league minimum, while his salary then increased from $2.6 million to $3.7 million for the 2025-26 season. Both contracts included player options, and Trent declined both before signing his four-year, $64 million deal.

That sequence stands out even more because Trent was coming off his worst statistical season since his rookie campaign. He averaged 8.1 points while shooting 39 percent from the field in 21 minutes per game.

The league wants to know whether those smaller contracts were part of a plan that would eventually lead to Trent receiving a much larger deal. If investigators find that the Bucks and Trent had such an agreement in place, it would violate the NBA’s salary rules.

The timing of the $64 million deal has also raised questions. News of the contract broke on July 11, nearly two weeks into free agency, when many teams had already used much of their available cap space. Rival league executives told The Athletic that this suggested Milwaukee may have paid Trent more than he could have received elsewhere at that point in free agency.

Milwaukee has offered a different view of the contract. The Bucks told rival teams that they believed Trent’s market value justified the deal and had projections showing he could have received around $15 million per year on the open market.

Bucks’ Contract History Brings Joe Smith Precedent Into Focus

The Bucks have used a similar contract path with Bobby Portis in the past.

Portis signed two-year contracts with player options in 2021 and 2022. He declined those options before eventually agreeing to a four-year, $48 million deal with Milwaukee in 2022.

There was an important difference before Portis received that larger contract. He was coming off the best statistical season of his career, while Trent had just recorded his lowest scoring average since entering the NBA.

The NBA has dealt with a similar situation before.

Twenty-seven years ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Joe Smith were found to have entered into cheaper one-year contracts with a secret agreement that Smith would eventually receive a much larger deal. The arrangement allowed Minnesota to gain Smith’s Bird rights and eventually exceed the salary cap to keep him.

The punishment was significant. Then-commissioner David Stern suspended Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale for one year, fined Minnesota $3.5 million, took five first-round picks from the franchise and voided Smith’s contract.

That case is relevant to the Trent investigation because the NBA is now examining whether Milwaukee and the guard followed a similar pattern. But the league has not determined that the Bucks or Trent violated its rules.

The Trent investigation is also unfolding while the NBA deals with the fallout from its Clippers case. On September 2, commissioner Adam Silver suspended Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker for one year, while president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank received a six-month suspension. The Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five first-round picks. Leonard was fined $700,000, while his uncle and former business manager Dennis Robertson was banned from working with NBA teams for five years.

For now, Klutch Sports’ cooperation is the latest development in the NBA’s examination of Trent’s $64 million contract. Investigators are still trying to establish whether his earlier deals and his new contract were connected by an agreement that violated the league’s salary-cap rules.

No violation has been established in the Trent case, and the investigation remains ongoing.