Bulls wing Denzel Valentine has signed his qualifying offer from the team, reports Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link).
As a result of the decision, Valentine will be under contract for the 2020/21 season on a one-year, $4.64MM deal. He’ll have a de facto no-trade clause for the season and will become an unrestricted free agent in 2021 once the contract expires.
The Bulls’ decision to extend a qualifying offer to Valentine was somewhat surprising. After a promising 2017/18, he has only appeared in 36 games over the last two years due to injuries. He averaged 6.8 PPG and 2.1 RPG on .409/.336/.750 in 13.6 minutes per contest for Chicago last season.
New president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas reportedly values Valentine’s shooting ability, which played a big part in the Bulls’ decision to make him a restricted free agent. The 27-year-old knocked down 38.6% of his three-point attempts in his last full season in ’17/18.
Free agent contracts generally can’t be officially completed until after the moratorium at the start of each league year, but signing a qualifying offer is one of the few transactions that is permitted in that window.
Doesn’t make sense when guys sign the QO. You will be in the same situation(restricted) the next free agency.
No. He’ll be unrestricted next year.
Good move for the Bulls: it givs Valentine a last chance to prove his worth while adding friendly expiring contract to the current roster, which will be valuable this season or next offseason.
Agreed, but the rules for trading a player who signs his QO when he has Bird/Early Bird rights are a bit more strict than usual. So while it appears valuable this coming season, Valentine would have to OK any trade. I’m a Pistons fan and we went through that with Greg Monroe years ago.
I think under new coach he will shine the best Michigan State off guard and mostly injury but never got his shoot
bulls should of passed. time to give other guys opportunities.
Worst draft pick in the last 5 years for the Bulls. He has no handles, not athletically a freak of nature, can’t shoot the 3 that great, defensively he’s horrendous and that’s why he rode the bench last year. He hasn’t picked up the speed of the game and it’s been 5 years? Would have been better signing Harkless or someone of that caliber.
What are you taking about? Stop typing for humanity’s sake.
Have you seen him play? You must be a Knicks fan. He is TRASH.
Has anyone seen him play since 17/18? He never plays, he’s an expiring contract on a bad team for extremely cheap, no need to overreact, if he can hit 38% from 3 as the 8th man on the bench the bulls should have a good pick in next years draft
he cant play(stay healthy). will always disappoint your team.
They should have let Valentine walk and signed Dunn. He has shown nothing since being drafted.