Free Agent Signees Who Could Be Back On Market In 2017

While many NBA players don’t necessarily love the uncertainty that free agency brings, reaching the open market and signing a new contract doesn’t always mean that a player will avoid the experience for several more years. For a number of the free agents who signed contracts this summer, there’s a good chance that they’ll head right back to the open market in the 2017 offseason.

In some cases, a player may choose to return to free agency sooner rather than later. Kevin Durant, for instance, could have signed a four-year contract with the Warriors, locking himself in through the 2019/20 season. Instead, he inked a two-year deal with an opt-out after year one. Durant will surely decline that player option next year in order to sign a new contract that will feature a much higher starter salary.

In other cases though, a team will simply be unwilling to give a player the sort of longer-term security he might want. Teams value flexibility, and the ability to easily create room and jettison big salaries can be important. That’s why, even though clubs have the ability to sign players to four- or five-year contracts, they’ll often opt for one- or two-year deals instead, including perhaps a team option or a non-guaranteed salary on that second year.

Listed below are the players who have signed free agent contracts this offseason who are decent bets to return to the open market next July. In addition to players on one-year contracts, this list includes players who have options or non-guaranteed salaries in year two, following a guaranteed salary for 2016/17. However, it doesn’t include players whose ’16/17 salaries aren’t yet fully guaranteed — those players could be free agents next July, but they could also become available well before then.

Let’s dive in…

Players who signed one-year contracts:

Players who signed two-year deals with second-year player options:

Players who signed multiyear deals with team options or non-guaranteed salaries in year two:

Information from Basketball Insiders and the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Tracker was used in the creation of this post.

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