Folks, we have more Milwaukee Bucks free agency slop to discuss. Matt Moore recently reported intel he had gathered on three Bucks free agents—Brook Lopez, Kevin Porter Jr., and Gary Trent Jr.—via his Substack, Hardwood Paroxysm.
Let’s begin with Brook Lopez. Moore stated that most people he’d spoken to assumed Lopez would not be returning to Milwaukee. And although the veteran’s star has fallen in the eyes of many Bucks fans, Matt ventured that front offices around the league could feel quite differently:
“Lopez might be one of the bigger names on the market. He’s certainly at the end of his career, but like Al Horford, he’s a complete pro and a winner who’s easy to fit into a team culture and find a role for, and still makes a difference defensively night to night.”
Moving on, several Bucks personnel people singled out Gary Trent Jr. as a player they wanted to re-sign, per the report. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s beat writer, Jim Owczarski, wrote on Reddit recently in an AMA he believed Trent could get between $8–10m this summer.
Moore also outlined that the Bucks are likely to retain Kevin Porter Jr. From an on-court POV, this is good news. Milwaukee will need playmakers like Porter with Damian Lillard out, as the Brew Hoop team has echoed before.
The final morsel of Matt’s true Bucks-related news bolstered Marc Stein’s previous reporting that Doc Rivers played a key role in Giannis seemingly wanting to stick around in Milwaukee. “God help Giannis,” Moore hilariously concluded.
The other Giannis-adjacent nugget that may not pass as news but was at least interesting was Moore’s take on what the heck actually might have happened between Antetokounmpo and the front office this offseason:
“What’s interesting is that several people I spoke to are under the impression there were two meetings. One with Giannis and the front office, with no report of the outcome from it and another with ownership and the front office that was focused on finances, specifically trying to reduce or eliminate their tax bill this summer.”
The word “eliminate” is what raises eyebrows. “Reduce” shouldn’t because for the front office to maximize their ability to add talent this offseason, they would have to cap themselves at the first apron, thus reducing their tax bill.
Any of the following would cause the Bucks to be hard-capped at the $195m first apron: using more than $5.7m of their mid-level exception, using their bi-annual exception, aggregating salaries in a trade, or taking back more money than they send out in a trade. This past season, the Bucks finished $11m over the tax line and owed around $29.4m in penalties. For 2025–26, the first apron is projected to be $8m above the tax threshold, so even spending up to the first apron would reduce their tax bill.
For those interested, Matt Moore joined the Locked On Bucks podcast on Tuesday to talk about the three free agents mentioned above, Giannis’ future with the team, how the collective bargaining agreement will impact Milwaukee’s strategy, and much more.