Greg Monroe To Accept Qualifying Offer?

10:56am: Zillgitt suggests in a follow-up story that a sign-and-trade scenario still could surface. Monroe received a pair of max offers this summer from teams other than the Pistons, but neither of those teams could work out a sign-and-trade with the Pistons that would have allowed Monroe to go to one of those clubs without the looming threat that Detroit would match, Zillgitt hears. The Pistons would probably match any offer for Monroe, as Vincent Goodwill surmises via Twitter, and presumably that would include max offers, which would explain why Monroe would be reluctant to ink a max offer sheet.

WEDNESDAY, 8:36am: Pistons coach/executive Stan Van Gundy indicated late Tuesday that neither Monroe nor Falk has informed him of any decision to take the qualifying offer, according to MLive’s David Mayo. Van Gundy also reiterated that he’d prefer Monroe to sign a long-term deal instead, Mayo notes. Other teams don’t appear to have been as concerned that the Pistons would match an offer sheet for Monroe as Monroe himself has been, Mayo writes.

TUESDAY, 7:18pm: The Pistons appear to be holding out hope that Monroe won’t sign his qualifying offer, says Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press (on Twitter), who adds that the team will continue to do so until the 24-year-old actually puts pen to paper.

6:29pm: Greg Monroe has informed the Pistons that he will accept the team’s qualifying offer, reports Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. It was noted earlier that Monroe had been seeking sign-and-trade deals with other teams, rather than looking to sign an offer sheet with another franchise, which the Pistons were likely to match. If Monroe does indeed accept the qualifying offer, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, and be free to sign with any team he chooses.

The qualifying offer is for $5.479MM, which is significantly below the amount he would have received if Monroe would have signed a long-term deal with the Pistons. The deadline for Monroe to sign the offer is October 1st, notes Zillgitt, and the player cannot be traded without his consent once he does sign. This decision carries some risk for Monroe if he is to suffer a serious injury this year. But so far in his career Monroe has been extremely durable, missing just one of his last 310 games.

The David Falk client’s decision is historic, since he’ll become just the 18th player since rookie scale contracts were instituted in 1995 to sign his qualifying offer. He’ll be the most high-profile player ever to do so, since the maneuver has usually been the domain of restricted free agents who are without more lucrative offers. Wizards big man Kevin Seraphin is the latest player to sign a qualifying offer, having done so last month.

The 6’11”, 24-year old, has been in the league for four seasons, and his career numbers are 14.0 PPG, 9.0 RPG, and 2.3 APG. His career slash line is .508/.000/.678.