New NBPA president CJ McCollum is unhappy with how the Heat handled Kendrick Nunn during free agency. On August 3, Miami pulled its qualifying offer for Nunn, making him an unrestricted free agent. Appearing on a podcast with Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, McCollum charged that the Heat made the decision after most teams with cap space had already allocated their free agent money (hat tip to Brad Sullivan of Heat Nation).
“The Kendrick Nunn situation,” McCollum said. “He was gonna be a free agent. They basically waited until the money dried up, right? You correct me if I’m wrong. Have you (Wojnarowski) seen this happening in the league and not being discussed at all? Where they talk about players forcing their way out, player movement. But then what about the manipulation that goes into some of these situations where teams are waiting for the market to dry up before they release a player’s rights.”
Nunn wound up signing a two-year, $10MM contract with the Lakers that includes a player option for the second season. L.A. used its taxpayer mid-level exception for the deal.
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
- Terry Rozier‘s four-year extension with the Hornets is an indication of the weakness of next summer’s free agent class, writes Dan Devine of The Ringer. Several big names that could have been on the market in 2022 have already signed extensions, and Charlotte doesn’t have a strong history of attracting free agents. Devine points out that Rozier’s new contract, which could be worth more than $96MM, only ranks 19th among NBA guards, which is in line with his recent production. It also provides some continuity for a team that lost Devonte’ Graham, Cody Zeller and Malik Monk.
- The Magic got what they expected from Franz Wagner during Summer League, according to Josh Cohen of NBA.com. The No. 8 pick averaged 8.0 points and 3.8 rebounds in four games and showed good instincts that make up for his limited athleticism.
- Assistant coach Marlon Garnett has left the Hawks‘ staff to join the Hornets, tweets Chris Kirschner of The Athletic.
Nun also turned down more lucrative offer. One from New York
NY never offered him a contract. Get informed. Nunn doesn’t fit our team
ZacharyH, YOU are correct. Glad you know what you are talking about instead of the irrational knix fan who defend his “brand”.
On August 3, 2021, Shams Charania tweeted he turned down more money from the knix and other teams to join the Lakers. Smart man
They didn’t even use their entire MLE. Only $5M instead of $5.89M, so cheap.
Rockets didn’t use their MLE ever since Fertita took over, take chillpill for yor hate
Is this an agent issue? Could Nunn’s agent put in his contract a release date after which he would have received compensation?
Nunn was a restricted free agent so he didn’t have a contract the heat just pulled the qualifying offer late
Kendrick nunn is a special kind of player. I hope what he dreams or thinks of playing in LA come into fruition.
He will probably opt out in 2022 and sign with an actual contender.
Many of his new teammates are nearing retirement, he’s too young for LA.
Think McCollum is reading into the situation way to much. Think the Heat released him then once they had got themselves Kyle Lowry, I’m guessing if that didn’t work out, say he chose the Pelicans or Sixers or whatever then they would’ve obviously kept Dragic and paid to keep Nunn.
Not to mention, What does it have to do with the Heat that other teams money ‘all dried up’ cause they chose to spend it elsewhere. No one was stopping them on making an offer to Nunn, the Heat took back their offer to sort out their own business. Nunn having likely received little interest was wanting a good offer to come in and it didn’t, Heat pulled their offer after they got Lowry, then in came the Lakers deal.
If someone had offered Nunn say 15mil the Heat would’ve said yeah go on take it, cause all we are interested in is Lowry. But that offer didn’t come in and that’s not the heats fault
I back what CJ is thinking here, the owners have to be held accountable on actions like this, or else the NBA will be no different to MLB, where owners dictate everything.
So every other RFA that signed contracts were somehow different? Notice he didn’t say a word about Lauri Markkanen? This was a shot at the heat (on purpose)
I dont know if it was entirely like that though. He knows Nunn thinks really highly of him, and says he models himself off of CJ.
Nunn has done nothing in this league.
except go from “who?” to 2nd place in the ROY voting in less than 6 months. But who cares… not like it would matter anywhere else right (Cough, cough Jeremy Lin)
CJM needs to understand that the RFA system has never worked very well, and isn’t working at all right now. BUT he can’t put that on the Heat, because they’re not willing to give up their rights to make it a bit better. NBAPA needs to negotiate a new set of rules for the timing and parameters of offer sheets for RFAs, or get rid of the RFA concept.
RFA works just fine to me. Nunn had offers. He wanted to play for Lakers. Heat were not going to get hard capped. Nunn is where he wants be. So shut up CJ.
link to cbssports.com
I like Rozier. And I think Hornets had a great draft. Not a Ball fan. So I’m curious to see how the season goes for them. I think they are a playoff team. But still are young. Let’s see if LaMello turns into Lonzo this year.
Good job CJ doing his job, repesenting players, countering the force-out claim.
Lakers got a fine bargain at 2/$10 is the other side. The best side is that Nunn is out of that Heat rollercoaster. Now he has to go against Westbrook in practices.
What does “Heat rollercoaster” mean?
Nunn was sometimes the starter, sometimes not, sometimes ignored in planning.
CJ is sooo right, as usual!
All the “so called fans” here always blast the players & think their teams are just wonderful… wake up dudes, players run the show, as a matter of fact players are the show, teams always abuse the players, but they are masters at hiding their deviousness, so fans end up blaming the players…
BTW that move shows off the classless MIA organization, but having said that all 30 teams in the league are about the same… but the “so called fans” here always find a way to justify the teams & blame the players, SMH!
what exactly is he right about? Let me know when he makes a statement on Lauri Markkanen… you know the guy who still hasn’t signed with anyone.
What is he wrong about? The RFA system has been cobbled together into a mess before CJ got there.
Other teams were misled by the Heat’s action, to Nunn’s loss, but nothing illegal happened per the CBA (probably).
And what is the injustice or whatever with Markkanon? His case is playing out still. Nobody did anybody wrong. He is not valued as high as he wants to be is all.
This feels like a hit piece from McCollum because he probably has back door knowledge of Bam recruiting Lillard…. I mean how many RFA’s were out there… 30? 40? 50?…. A team could have signed him to any contract at anytime knowing the Heat most likely weren’t going to match. This reeks of shadiness to me.. and if I’m right… McCollum should resign.
The typical path would be the PGs would go off the “board” in order of salary… thus Nunn would have to wait. Of course talk is behind the scenes and in economic terms the “market is imperfect”. But you can’t logically make the assumption you are making.
” Back door knowledge of Bam recruiting Lillard “? What does that have to do with it? Players can talk. And why does that make CJ shady? How do you get to shady? HR has gone into why it was unknown if Miami would match. There’s a timeline involved. It is confusing, but you’re jumping to a strange conclusion. You must have read more on this somewhere.
I do not think Nunn actually has a case BTW. He may have gotten what he wanted anyway. Schroder got similar.
Heat did not want to get hard capped. After signing Lowry. They had no need for Nunn. Any team could have offered him a contract. No one did so Heat made him unrestricted. Do the research why do you always go off the deep end. I posted the article. Nunn is where he wants to be. So why is this even a conversation much less a debate.
I am aware of the Nunn/Heat story and have referred to it repeatedly. But the point for me is CJ McCollum’s action, NOT Nunn’s. I am not debating Nunn as I made clear in the preceding paragraph. The debate is, does McCollum have the right, or prerogative, to bring Nunn up, or even to criticize a CBA rule, as the player union leader. This was brought up by jeremyn especially. The answer is, he sure as hell does have the clearance, whether there is fault or not. That’s his job, to review the rules.
The use of the rule and the rule itself does play a part but I doubt anyone cares much about the timeline details, not even the writer in your link. It all gets waved off when we learn that Nunn did get better offers but set them aside to play in LA. So F his case.
The problem with the idea of outright blaming the Heat in this situation is there are a lot of universes in which they actually end up keeping Nunn, or moving him in a sign and trade situation. They actually let him go when it was more clear neither of those things would happen, and he was able to at least end up somewhere for a pillow deal where he might be in a really good position next season, and at least got something
That being said, there are definitely times where this issue applies, and it’s something many people here have talked about in the past, including myself. They shortened the matching window a couple of years ago, but there is still very little incentive to actually sign someone to an offer sheet, and that’s why these guys are getting signed and traded way more often. Signing someone to an offer sheet means that cap space cant be used for multiple days, and if their team matches, you are essentially screwed