Milwaukee Bucks have salary cap flexibility coming soon

The Milwaukee Bucks entered a new era this summer after trading Giannis Antetokounmpo. Just as the players on the Bucks roster has been overhauled, so has the Bucks cap sheet over the next few seasons.

There are some holdovers from the last era. The ghost of Bucks Damian Lillard remains for the next four seasons as a $21.3 million cap hit. Unlike every other big contract on Milwaukee’s books, Lillard’s cap hit can’t be moved and will restrict the Bucks’ spending power no matter what.

The Bucks have $168.3 million in player contracts currently owed to the 17 players under contract for the 2026-27 season, with some work to do to finalize Milwaukee’s roster. Between those contracts and the dead cap for Lillard (and Vasilije Micic on a much smaller scale) the Bucks have $190 million on the books for the coming season.

This leaves the Bucks well above the $164 million salary cap but $10 million below the luxury tax line. Additionally, the Bucks are hard-capped at the first apron following the transactions they’ve already executed this summer. The cap/tax/apron differences are complex, but the simplest way to put it is the Bucks probably won’t end the season in the luxury tax and functionally cannot go into the first apron, leaving around $14 million as the absolute most the Bucks could add to their books this season.

Milwaukee had a lot of flexibility below the apron prior to the Gary Trent Jr. contract adding $15.2 million for this season, but retains the ability to wheel and deal in large part thanks to all of the Bucks expiring contracts.

All of the following players are in the final season of their contracts:

• Tyler Herro - $33 million
• Kyle Kuzma - $20.4 million
• Caris Levert - $14.8 million
• Jaime Jaquez Jr. - $5.9 million
• Kevin Porter Jr. - $5.3 million
• Jericho Sims - $2.8 million

Expiring contracts are imminently tradeable in the NBA, meaning if the Bucks really need to create some more space for, say, sign-and-trading for Peyton Watson, it should in theory be simple enough for Milwaukee to do so.

The other important piece of all of those expiring deals is by default having them means the Bucks will have much less salary on the books for the 2027-28 season. Only three Bucks are slated to make eight figures that season: Myles Turner ($27.8 million), Gary Trent Jr. ($16.4 million), and A.J. Green ($10 million).

The Bucks’ current team salary is projected to be roughly $57 million under the cap, even with the dead money owed to Lillard, in 2027-28. That’s about equal to one max contract spot, although of course any extension or new contract for an existing player would eat into that figure.

The most pressing such renewal case is Ryan Rollins, who will certainly opt out of his $4 million player option ahead of the 2027-28 season in search of a larger contract. Rollins cannot be extended this season due to CBA rules governing extensions, so the Bucks will have to wait and see about retaining him until the summer of 2027.

Milwaukee could move quicker with extensions for Herro, Kuzma, or Jaquez Jr., although the Bucks haven’t looked to urgently lock up any of those players prior to seeing at least some of the 2026-27 season play out. Barring an exceptional season for one of those players, waiting to extend gives the Bucks the most flexibility possible.

Milwaukee would hold bird rights on them all and be in the driver’s seat to re-sign any of the veterans. The Bucks would also have the option to renounce their cap holds and open a ton of cap space while preserving Rollins’ small cap hold, with the ability to re-sign him with bird rights after using that cap space on other moves.

It’s impossible to project which free agent signings or trades the Bucks could execute next summer right now, but Bucks GM Jon Horst should have the financial flexibility to pursue whatever path he deems ideal for getting Milwaukee back to winning ways. At least until the Bucks pull off one of the sign-and-trade deals they've been linked to in recent weeks.