The Knicks have formally extended a qualifying offer to Pablo Prigioni, ensuring that he'll be a restricted free agent next month, tweets Al Iannazzone of Newsday. The offer, which comes a day after the team extended a QO to Chris Copeland, is worth the same as Copeland's one-year offer: $988,872.
By making the qualifying offer, the Knicks will have the opportunity to match any rival offers for Prigioni up to $3.18MM, the taxpayer's mid-level exception. The Knicks reportedly would like to bring both Prigioni and Copeland back, but will only have that $3.18MM available for both players. Using that MLE on one or both of them would also rule out the possibility of using it on an outside free agent, so the Knicks will have some decisions ahead of them in the coming weeks.
In his first year in the NBA, the 36-year-old Prigioni averaged 3.5 PPG and 3.0 APG in 78 contests for the Knicks (16.2 MPG)