The Trail Blazers will not tender a qualifying offer to Pat Connaughton, reports Michael Scotto of The Athletic (Twitter link). Rather than hitting the open market as a restricted free agent on Sunday, Connaughton will be unrestricted.
Connaughton, 25, emerged as a reliable rotation piece for Portland in 2017/18, appearing in all 82 of the team’s regular season games and averaging 18.1 minutes per contest. He chipped in 5.4 PPG, 2.0 RPG, and 1.1 APG with a .423/.352/.841 shooting line.
The Trail Blazers issued a qualifying offer to Jusuf Nurkic, but have decided against doing so for Connaughton and Shabazz Napier, two players who saw regular minutes for the club last season.
Napier’s QO would have been worth $3.45MM, while Connaughton’s would have only been for $1.84MM. However, the cap-strapped Blazers already have $110MM+ in guaranteed money on their books for eight players, so a new deal for Nurkic could put them up against the tax line with several players still to sign. As such, Portland will be cautious about every dollar it spends, and may not have wanted to risk Napier and/or Connaughton accepting their qualifying offers.
Lol I can’t believe Portland’s cap situation is so messed up that they can’t offer QO’s to players just because they can’t afford them to be accepted. This Napier non-tender isn’t a big deal considering the drafting of Anfernee Simons and Gary Trent Jr., and they’re probably saving their money for Nurkic’s QO, which it seems more and more likely that they’ll match. Hopefully nobody gives him an Allen Crabbe-like deal. Neil Olshey at that point would be so frustrated that keeping his assets and never moving them hasn’t ever worked out during his whole tenure.
The only good thing about this guy is that is cheap, but then again Portland hopefully can find someone cheaper even… so not bad move, right?