You love NBA free agency and trades. I love NBA free agency and trades. We all do. Sickos like me love it so much that we delve into legal documents to figure out exactly what is permitted and what isn’t. But all of us want all the information about the team-building options available to our favorite franchises at our fingertips whenever we need them.
With that in mind, SB Nation has partnered with SalarySwish, and alongside their data we attempt to answer every single question you could possibly have about the Bucks’ financial situation. Questions about the first or second apron and the Bucks’ relationship to them? How few draft picks do they have available to trade? How much money is on the books after next summer? The answers are here, and it’s an updating, living, and breathing document with all relevant context as the Bucks move ahead. I recommend you bookmark this page to keep up with all the latest changes!
Bucks Roster, Salaries, Draft Picks, Cap Space & More
Here is a table with all of the Bucks’ salary information, courtesy of our friends at SalarySwish:
That’s a lot to swallow, so let’s dive into a few key pieces and what they mean, which could answer any questions that pop into your head while reading.
Do the Bucks have any cap room? If not, when will they?
No, though they did create some last July to accommodate the four-year, $108.9m contract for Myles Turner by waiving Damian Lillard, among other moves. If every Buck with a player option in the summer of 2026 declines them (unlikely), the team could potentially create cap room by renouncing these players’ rights (even more unlikely), but it wouldn’t be enough to sign a player for more than $3m. Barring that, they project to have room in the summer of 2027, when their only guaranteed contracts will be for Turner, AJ Green, Giannis, Ryan Rollins, and Bobby Portis—should the latter three exercise their player options—plus potentially the player they take in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft. But it would likely not be more than $20m in space.
Can the Bucks use the mid-level exception or bi-annual exception this year? Do they have any trade exceptions?
Since the Bucks conjured up some cap room to sign Turner, they lost the right to use the full $14.1m mid-level exception and the $5.1m bi-annual exception. Instead, they had access to a version of the MLE worth $8.8m, commonly known as the room exception. They used part of that exception to sign Kevin Porter Jr. to a new deal worth $5.1m, so they have about $3.6m remaining on it for the remainder of the league year, but the number begins prorating down in January. Milwaukee previously had four trade exceptions, all of which would have expired in February 2026, including one for $7.2m generated in February’s trade with Washington and New York. However, creating cap space also sacrificed those.
Are the Bucks over the first or second apron above the luxury tax?
For 2025–26, they are currently $11.8m beneath the first apron and $23.7m beneath the second apron, so they face none of the restrictions associated with being above either. The Bucks have $181.3m guaranteed for 15 players, including Lillard’s stretched salary at $22.5m (this will be reduced to $20.2m due to his new contract in Portland, but not until season’s end), Vasilije Micić’s stretched salary of $667k after he too was bought out, plus $6.3m in dead money due to waiving Chris Livingston, Tyler Smith, and Nigel Hayes-Davis. They are currently operating as an over-the-cap team, facing all the restrictions that come with having no remaining cap space. In 2024–25, they finished about $7.8m over the first apron but about $3m under the second apron, where they were hard-capped.
Are the Bucks paying the luxury tax? If so, how much is their bill?
In 2025–26, their $181.3m currently on the books leaves them $6.5m below the $187.9m tax threshold. Reports indicate that ownership doesn’t want to pay the tax this season, but the bill isn’t calculated until the day the regular season ends next April. It is essentially impossible for them to add enough salary during the remainder of the season to cross the tax line.
Will the Bucks be beneath the first or second apron next year?
Doing so would mean that Milwaukee would become a taxpayer again in 2026–27. If a team pays the tax in three of any four consecutive seasons, they are subject to more punitive repeater penalties. Should they remain below the tax threshold again in 2026–27, they would then reset that clock and could finish above it in 2027–28 without facing those penalties, since at that point, they would have only paid luxury tax in two of the prior four seasons (2024–25 included). So it seems likely that they will avoid being taxpayers in 2026–27, and thus not contend with either apron.
Are the Bucks hard-capped?
Yes. At the deadline, the Bucks traded away about $4.6m worth of salary in the form of Cole Anthony and Amir Coffey, receiving the combined salaries of Ousmane Dieng and Nigel Hayes-Davis in return, about $8.7m. Using Anthony and Coffey’s salaries to take back more money in return triggers a hard cap at the first apron. This means their “apron salary” (all guaranteed money plus any unlikely benefits written into contracts) cannot cross $195.9m under any circumstances. You can read more here about what causes teams to become hard-capped.
What draft picks can the Bucks currently trade?
The Bucks may trade their own first-round picks in the 2031 and 2032 NBA Drafts, but no others. If one of those two is traded, the other could only be dealt as a pick swap, since the NBA’s Stepien rule prevents teams from going without a first in consecutive drafts. While they control firsts in the 2026, 2028, and 2030 drafts, meaning they will be able to draft a player in those years, the selections themselves are encumbered by swaps. They therefore cannot be traded, only re-swapped, as occurred in last February’s Khris Middleton-Kyle Kuzma deal. The only second-round pick the Bucks currently possess and can trade is Utah’s top-55 protected 2026 second.
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Updated February 14, 2026.
