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2014 Rookie Scale Extension Primer

July 28th, 2014 at 12:47pm CST by Chuck Myron

The deals involving star players aren’t yet over this offseason. Even beyond the unresolved free agencies of Eric Bledsoe and Greg Monroe and the looming specter of a Kevin Love trade are rookie scale extension candidates. Any player who signed a rookie scale contract is eligible to sign an extension from July 1st to October 31st after his third season in the league. If the player doesn’t sign an extension in that window, he’ll be eligible for restricted free agency the next summer.

Six players signed rookie scale extensions last offseason, and Kyrie Irving became the first to do so this summer, signing the first day he was eligible. Here’s a look at what Irving received and a primer on the rest of the market.

Kyrie Irving, Cavaliers — Irving already signed a five-year max extension. Irving’s lone financial concession was giving up the right to receive approximately 30% of the salary cap should he trigger the Derrick Rose Rule. He’ll instead earn about 27.5% should he meet the Rose Rule criteria and the standard 25% max if not.

Klay Thompson, Warriors — Agent Bill Duffy is seeking the max in negotiations with Golden State, and the team appears to have decided to keep his name out of offers for Love, at least for the time being. The Warriors have taken steps to plan for such a deal, even dating back to the veteran extension they signed last year with Andrew Bogut. Co-owner Joe Lacob has vowed to strike a deal with the shooting guard, though it’s not entirely clear whether he intends to do so through an extension or next summer in restricted free agency. Signing an extension would trigger the Poison Pill Provision, making it difficult for the Warriors to trade Thompson until next summer, so I think he’ll sacrifice some money for a degree of certainty. Prediction: Four years, $58MM.

Kawhi Leonard, Spurs — The Finals MVP is confident a deal will get done, and Gregg Popovich believes the 23-year-old will become the face of the franchise. Still, the three straight games with 20 points or more he compiled in the last three games of the Finals represented the first such streak in his entire career, and only the second time he’d ever scored 20 in as many as two games in a row. He’s also grown among a Spurs core that sacrificed money for championships. Prediction: Four years, $50MM.

Nikola Vucevic, Magic — There’s reportedly mutual interest in a deal, though it sounds like Orlando has put the matter on the backburner. Vucevic’s progress seemed to stall this past season, but the leap he made in his second NBA season, the first in which he saw significant playing time, is probably enough to convince the Magic to deal. Orlando has been profligate in its spending on mid-tier veterans, so I imagine the team will follow suit with its promising 23-year-old center. Prediction: Four years, $48MM.

Kenneth Faried, Nuggets — Denver GM Tim Connelly and coach Brian Shaw spoke in support of Faried this spring, and Connelly was to have met with agent Thad Foucher and company at the beginning of this month. Still, the Nuggets reportedly floated Faried’s name in trade talks early last season, and concerns about his defense remain. Prediction: Four years, $44MM.

Ricky Rubio, Timberwolves — Agent Dan Fegan wants the five-year max that former GM David Kahn infamously refused to give to Love in order to save it for Rubio, but injury and shooting woes have kept the point guard from displaying superstar potential. Flip Saunders, who replaced Kahn in the Minnesota front office, might be willing to overpay a smidge to prevent losing both Love and Rubio, but given Fegan’s demands, it seems unlikely they come to terms. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.

Tristan Thompson, Cavaliers — The Rich Paul client has increased leverage now that LeBron James, the top client on Paul’s list, has returned to Cleveland, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports recently wrote. Cleveland will have a tough time engineering cap flexibility to chase Love next summer, and it would be hard to trade Thompson if he signed an extension, thanks to the same Poison Pill Provision that would trip up the Warriors and their extension-eligible Thompson. It’s also tough to see where Tristan Thompson fits in if Cleveland does acquire Love. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.

Jimmy Butler, Bulls — Butler is yet another rookie scale extension-eligible player tied to Love. The Wolves would reportedly like to receive Butler in a trade involving Love, but the Bulls apparently kept him out of their recent offer. That indicates that Chicago envisions a future with the Happy Walters client. Prediction: Four years, $42MM.

Reggie Jackson, Thunder — The last time a Thunder sixth man came up for a rookie scale extension, they traded him to the Rockets. It doesn’t seem like a drastic move like the James Harden blockbuster will happen this time, but Jackson wants a job at starting point guard he won’t get as long as Russell Westbrook‘s in town, and GM Sam Presti has seemed dismissive of extension chatter. Prediction: No extension; restricted free agency next summer.

Kemba Walker, Hornets — Charlotte has taken a fast track to rebuilding the past two seasons, but next summer might be about maintaining the status quo more than building, with Al Jefferson possessing the chance to hit free agency. Unless GM Rich Cho has designs on keeping everyone together and making a significant upgrade at point guard, I think he’ll be willing to get a deal done with Walker before Halloween. That goes double if it prevents another team from driving up Walker’s cost in restricted free agency, just as Cho drove up Gordon Hayward‘s cost this summer. Prediction: Four years, $40MM.

Extension longshots:

These are the rest of the players eligible for rookie scale extensions this year. Even though none of them seem likely to sign, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or two of these players ink a small-scale extension like the four-year, $14MM deal the Grizzlies gave Quincy Pondexter.

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Hoops Rumors Originals

July 27th, 2014 at 3:31pm CST by Zachary Links

Here’s a look back at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this week..

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Poll: Should Cavs Deal Wiggins For Love?

July 27th, 2014 at 10:51am CST by Eddie Scarito

Heading into this offseason, the chances of Kevin Love heading to the Cavaliers were slim. But that was before LeBron James decided to return his talents to Cleveland. When LeBron announced his decision to sign with the Cavs, he preached patience, and in a move to lower expectations, implied that the team wouldn’t expect to contend for a championship this coming season.

But acquiring a player of Love’s caliber could certainly accelerate that timetable, which is one reason that Cleveland has seemingly been burning up the phone lines trying to work out a deal to acquire the stat-sheet-filling power forward. The feeling is apparently shared by Love, who, as recently reported, may have formally requested a trade to Cleveland via his agent.

Numerous other teams have been attempting to work out a deal, including the Warriors, Celtics, Lakers, Bulls and Knicks. Golden State still appears to be Cleveland’s main competitors for Love, but the Warriors have expressed an unwillingness to include Klay Thompson as part of the deal, which has stalled talks between the two franchises.

The potential blockbuster deal between the Wolves and the Cavs is being complicated by the insistence of Minnesota coach and president of basketball operation Flip Saunders that Cleveland include No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins as part of any package for Love. Wiggins recently signed with the Cavs, so they will have to wait 30 days before they can officially deal him away. But that is only a minor issue if both franchises are serious about making a trade.

Should the Cavs relent and include Wiggins if it nets them Love? Wiggins has a wealth of potential and could turn out to be a superstar, and the type of player you can build a champion around, but he has yet to play a minute of regular season action. Whereas Love has career averages of 19.2 PPG, 12.2 RPG, and 2.5 APG. He’s also only 25 years old and just entering his prime. The knock on Love of course is that in six seasons he has yet to lead his team to the playoffs, and that he is a subpar defender.

As for Wiggins, his value is more theoretical at this point. There have been numerous players, including first overall draft picks, who enter the league being touted as franchise changing talents, only to disappoint and underperform. The ceiling on the rookie appears to be incredibly high, but is holding onto him and gambling he’ll turn out to be a better player than Love worth the risk?

The other aspect to factor in is the leverage that Cleveland may have gained in the trade talks if Love indeed told the Timberwolves that he would opt out after the 2014/15 season and would not re-sign with the team. And if Love also specifically requested a trade to Cleveland, that could complicate matters further.

Cleveland could also decide to hold off on depleting its young assets and simply play out this season with its current roster, then try to clear enough cap room to sign Love next summer outright. This might allow them to keep Wiggins, Anthony Bennett, and whichever other pieces, including draft picks, that they would have had to ship to Minnesota to get this deal done, but it would still be a challenge. The Cavs already have more than $48MM in commitments for 2015/16, assuming James opts in and the team picks up its option on Dion Waiters.

So now it’s time for you to step into Cavs GM David Griffin‘s shoes and make the call. Do you relent and include Wiggins if it will bring Love’s talents to Cleveland? Or do you draw a line in the sand and refuse to offer Wiggins, even if it potentially costs you a LeBron-Love pairing?

Should The Cavs Deal Andrew Wiggins For Kevin Love?
No way. Wiggins is too valuable a piece. 39.82% (2,113 votes)
Absolutely. Why is this even a discussion? 39.80% (2,112 votes)
Yes, but I might live to regret it. 20.37% (1,081 votes)
Total Votes: 5,306
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Exhibit 9 Contracts

July 25th, 2014 at 11:15pm CST by Chuck Myron

Several players will sign summer contracts in the weeks ahead, and by definition, those contracts are non-guaranteed. Some of those deals, called Exhibit 9 contracts, will contain even fewer assurances for the player, but teams can only sign players to Exhibit 9’s under specific circumstances.

Standard NBA contracts ensure that if a player is hurt while performing for the team, his salary is guaranteed until he recovers or the end of the season, whichever comes first. Teams can waive Exhibit 9 contracts at any time should the player get hurt and owe a mere $6K.

Since most training camp invitees wind up getting waived before the start of the season, Exhibit 9’s are a vehicle for teams to avoid the sort of situation that befell the Clippers last year, when Maalik Wayns suffered a preseason knee injury. It was a non-guaranteed contract, but not an Exhibit 9, so the Clippers had to carry him on their roster into the regular season. The deal for Wayns was to have become fully guaranteed for the season if the Clippers failed to waive him by the end of December 1st, and he was still unable to play at that point. He gave the Clippers a break when he agreed to push the guarantee date back to January, and the team eventually waived him in advance of that deadline once he had recovered. Still, the injury cost the Clippers an extra month’s worth or so of salary that they may never have intended to pay out. The Clippers were luxury taxpayers last season, compounding the cost of Wayns’ injury.

Exhibit 9’s must be for one season, and they must be for the minimum salary. Just about every summer contract is a minimum-salary arrangement, but many of them stretch three or four seasons, as teams look to take advantage of rules that make lengthy deals more team-friendly. Still, such benefits have a price, as the Wayns example proved.

Teams must have 14 players on the roster before signing anyone to an Exhibit 9. Sometimes, there are players who are curiously released just at the start of training camp, before they have any chance to play their way on to the team. Such was the case with Patrick Christopher and Kalin Lucas last season. The Bulls signed the pair on September 12th and waived them on October 2nd, the second day of camp. As Mark Deeks of ShamSports explained, the Bulls signed them to non-Exhibit 9 deals to bring their roster to 14 and facilitate the use of Exhibit 9’s on the players they wished to have compete for a spot on the opening-night roster. They released Christopher and Lucas before they had a chance to get hurt.

Christopher agreed to a deal Friday with the Grizzlies, who already had 14 players under contract, so there’s a strong chance he’s receiving an Exhibit 9 this time. That’ll give him a chance to at least show what he can do against NBA competition in the preseason in an effort to make it to opening night, even if all the team owes him would be $6K if he gets hurt.

Just as with summer contracts, teams need not have the cap room or exception space to sign a player to an Exhibit 9, as long as they create the necessary room if they keep the player into the regular season. That allowance wouldn’t come into play in most circumstances, since the minimum-salary exception is all that’s necessary to have room for an Exhibit 9. Still, Exhibit 9’s are handy tools for clubs dealing with hard caps. The unintended imposition of guaranteed salary that an injury to a non-Exhibit 9 player might incur could put a hard-capped team in a difficult spot, one in which it might have to waive or trade another player to accommodate someone it merely intended to bring to camp.

The limited liability of Exhibit 9’s help create opportunities for the sort of player who teams would otherwise deem too much of a long shot to make the roster and not worth the risk of having to pay him throughout the season. Still, these deals open up fringe NBA prospects to medical expenses that $6K wouldn’t be enough to cover, just for a chance to compete for a spot at the end of the bench come November.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ was used in the creation of this post.

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Teams Limited To Paying The Minimum Salary

July 25th, 2014 at 10:30am CST by Chuck Myron

Money dries up quickly in NBA free agency. Teams come to dozens of agreements within in the first two weeks of July, leaving little remaining cash for stragglers. That’s often why top restricted free agents remain on the table until late in the process, as teams hesitate to tie up cap room on an offer sheet that could end up being matched. Mid-tier veteran unrestricted free agents also feel the squeeze, as patience is often rewarded only with a shrinking pool of options.

Eleven of the NBA’s 30 teams are already limited to offering no more than the minimum salary to free agents from other teams. They’ve used up all of their available cap room and exceptions, aside from the minimum-salary exception. Teams below the tax apron can take sign-and-trades, as the Wizards did with Kris Humphries and DeJuan Blair, and some clubs, like the Cavs, can waive non-guaranteed salary to open up more cap space. Still, these 11 teams can’t sign players for more than the minimum, at least without a corresponding move, and in most cases, such a move would require the cooperation of another team:

Updated 3/25/15

Basketball Insiders and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

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Teams With Hard Caps For 2014/15

July 24th, 2014 at 2:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s salary cap is really a misnomer of sorts, since it doesn’t truly cap salaries. Look no further than last year’s Nets for confirmation of that. They doled out nearly $103MM in salaries, incurring more than $90.57MM in luxury taxes and smashing the record for the greatest expenditure on a single roster in NBA history.

The NBA’s salary cap is commonly referred to as a “soft cap,” but there are still ways that teams can impose a “hard cap” upon themselves and set a finite limit to their spending. If a team’s salary exceeds the luxury tax threshold ($76,829,000) by more than $4MM, that team is not permitted to acquire a player via sign-and-trade, or to use the non-taxpayer’s mid-level or biannual exceptions. The only exceptions available to such a team are the taxpayer’s mid-level of $3,278,000, the minimum-salary exception, and whatever form of Bird rights they have on their own free agents. As soon as a team completes a sign-and-trade deal, uses its BAE, or uses more than $3,278,000 of its MLE to sign a player, that club becomes hard-capped at $80,829,000 for the 2014/15 season. In other words, team salary can’t exceed that amount at any point between now and June 30th, 2015.

For some clubs, that hard cap isn’t a major concern. For instance, the Suns still have about $18MM in breathing room below the hard cap, so they have plenty of flexibility to re-sign restricted free agent Eric Bledsoe to a max contract if need be. On the other hand, the Clippers are only about $1MM below the hard cap, so any trades or signings they make for the rest of the season will have to be constructed to ensure their team salary doesn’t surpass that $80.829MM cutoff.

More clubs may trigger hard caps as the offseason wears on, but here are the teams that are now locked into a hard cap for the 2014/15 season, along with an estimation (via Basketball Insiders) of their current team salaries and the reason(s) why the hard cap was created:

Hawks
Hard cap created: Acquired Thabo Sefolosha via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $60,975,564

Rockets
Hard cap created: Acquired Trevor Ariza via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $68,125,942

Wizards
Hard cap created: Acquired Kris Humphries via sign-and-trade; acquired DeJuan Blair via sign-and-trade; signed Paul Pierce via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $76,646,603

Suns
Hard cap created: Acquired Isaiah Thomas via sign-and-trade
Estimated team salary: $51,805,537

Warriors
Hard cap created: Signed Shaun Livingston via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $72,232,245

Pacers
Hard cap created: Signed C.J. Miles and Damjan Rudez via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $74,798,942

Clippers
Hard cap created: Signed Spencer Hawes via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Jordan Farmar via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $79,679,772

Grizzlies
Hard cap created: Signed Vince Carter via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Beno Udrih via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $75,529,943

Trail Blazers
Hard cap created: Signed Chris Kaman via non-taxpayer MLE; signed Steve Blake via biannual exception
Estimated team salary: $69,322,824

Kings
Hard cap created: Signed Darren Collison via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated team salary: $75,852,705

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Hoops Rumors 2014 Free Agent Tracker

July 24th, 2014 at 8:59am CST by Chuck Myron

Dozens of players have signed new contracts in the past few weeks, and some noteworthy free agents remain without one. You can see where they all stand with the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Tracker. Using our tracker, you can quickly sort through contract agreements, sorting by team, position, free agent type, and a handful of other variables.

A few notes on the tracker:

  • Contract years and dollars are based on what’s been reported to date, so in some cases those amounts are approximations rather than official figures. Salaries aren’t necessarily fully guaranteed, either.
  • A restricted free agent who signs an offer sheet will be listed under the team that extended the offer sheet, but note that those signings won’t be official unless the player’s original team declines to match within the three-day period to do so. If the original team matches, we’ll update the tracker to show that the player is back with that team.
  • The tracker doesn’t include signed draft picks, since those players weren’t free agents. We’re keeping on top of 2014 draft pick signings in this post. The tracker also doesn’t include “draft-and-stash” players who’ve signed this summer, like Nikola Mirotic and Bojan Bogdanovic. You can find information about those players on their personal rumor pages (Click these links for Mirotic‘s and Bogdanovic‘s personal rumor pages, and find out how to access any player’s rumor page here).

Our 2014 Free Agent Tracker can be found anytime on the right sidebar under “Hoops Rumors Features,” and it’s also under the “Tools” menu atop the site. It will be updated throughout the offseason, so be sure to check back for the latest info. If you have any corrections, please let us know right here.

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Summer Contracts

July 22nd, 2014 at 4:19pm CST by Chuck Myron

NBA teams typically turn their attention to deals known as summer contracts once the madness of the first few weeks of free agency subsides. The term is something of a misnomer, since these aren’t contracts for summer league, as the name might suggest. Instead, they’re signed with an eye toward October, when teams conduct training camps and play preseason games.

Rosters can swell to as many as 20 players during the offseason, and many teams will take full advantage between now and the time camps open, signing a handful of prospects who dream of making it to opening night, when teams may carry no more than 15 players again. A few will break through and displace established veterans on guaranteed contracts, but most will be gone by the regular season, when players start to receive paychecks. Almost every team in the league will sign camp invitees to contracts that will be terminated before the salary even begins to be paid out, and the league treats these contracts differently from others.

Summer contracts must be non-guaranteed, and while they’re almost always for the minimum salary, they don’t have to be. They also needn’t be for just one season. The one-year, minimum-salary limits apply to Exhibit 9 contracts, which are a subset of summer pacts. Those restrictions are also in place if a club re-signs one of its own free agents to a summer contract, or if a team inks a summer contract with one of its former players who has yet to sign with another NBA team. Still, it’s a fair bet we’ll see the Sixers, who made prolific use of lengthy non-guaranteed contracts last season, sign players to summer contracts for three and four seasons, and many other teams surely will, too.

Sixers power forward Brandon Davies signed his four-year summer contract on October 27th, 2013, just before the start of the regular season this past year. Teams can sign summer contracts from the first day following the July moratorium until the last day before the regular season starts. Most of them are signed during August and September.

Teams are allowed to sign players to summer contracts even if they don’t have the cap room or an exception available to facilitate such a deal, as long as they create the necessary flexibility by the start of the regular season if they wind up keeping the players. That caveat doesn’t often come into play too frequently, since most summer contracts are for the minimum salary and fall under the auspices of the minimum-salary exception. However, the minimum salary exception only covers contracts of no more than two years, so the rule helps teams that sign players to longer summer contracts. It also comes in handy for teams that have triggered hard caps with the use of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception, biannual exception, and/or the acquisition of a player via sign-and-trade.

Note: This is a Hoops Rumors Glossary entry. Our glossary posts will explain specific rules relating to trades, free agency, or other aspects of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Larry Coon’s Salary Cap FAQ and ShamSports were used in the creation of this post.

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Players Who’ve Signed Qualifying Offers

July 22nd, 2014 at 10:02am CST by Chuck Myron

Kevin Seraphin is by no means an exceptional NBA player, but Friday he did something that only 16 others have done since the implementation of rookie scale contracts in 1995: he signed his qualifying offer. Usually, the one-year qualifying offer is a mere placeholder for negotiation between a team and a restricted free agent, a vehicle for the club to retain its right to match offers from other teams. Still, a few players have gone ahead and taken the qualifying offer out of a desire to hit unrestricted free agency as soon as possible. A larger group among the 17 who have signed qualifying offers did so because there was no better offer on the market, and presumably Seraphin is among them.

Occasionally, a marquee restricted free agent will threaten to sign a qualifying offer to attempt to spook his team into a more player-friendly negotiating stance, lest the team lose the player to unrestricted free agency a year later. A report suggested that Greg Monroe might have done so this month, but rarely does this tactic come to fruition. The most sought-after restricted free agent to sign his qualifying offer was probably Ben Gordon in 2008, though it’s worth noting that the strategy seemed to work for him, as he fled for a lucrative deal with the Pistons the next summer.

Most players who sign qualifying offers don’t stick with their teams for long. Spencer Hawes is the only player to sign a contract with the same team with which he signed a qualifying offer the year before.

Not every player who receives a qualifying offer is coming off a rookie scale contract. Any player with three or fewer years of NBA experience is subject to restricted free agency if his team tenders a qualifying offer. In some cases, players have signed qualifying offers and have still been eligible for restricted free agency the next offseason. The Lakers carried two such players in 2012/13. Devin Ebanks and Darius Morris had signed qualifying offers in 2012 to remain with the team for that season, though the Lakers declined to tender qualifying offers to either of them in 2013.

With the help of RealGM.com, ShamSports, Storytellers Contracts, Patricia Bender’s database and our own archives, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of players who’ve signed qualifying offers since 1995, including information on the next NBA deal each player signed. They’re listed in reverse chronological order below:

  • Kevin Seraphin signed a qualifying offer of $3,898,692 from the Wizards on 7/18/14.
  • Ivan Johnson signed a qualifying offer of $962,195 from the Hawks on 9/18/12. Has not signed another NBA contract.
  • Devin Ebanks signed a qualifying offer of $1,054,389 from the Lakers on 8/13/12. He signed a non-guaranteed training camp invitation from the Mavs on 9/13/13, but he didn’t make the opening-night roster.
  • Luke Harangody signed a qualifying offer of $1,054,389 from the Cavaliers on 7/3/12. Has not signed another NBA contract.
  • Darius Morris signed a qualifying offer of $962,195 from the Lakers on 7/2/12. He agreed to sign a non-guaranteed training camp invitation from the Sixers on 9/12/13, but he didn’t make the opening-night roster. He later surfaced on a 10-day contract with the Clippers, signed 1/6/14.
  • Nick Young signed a qualifying offer of $3,695,857 from the Wizards on 12/19/11. He was traded to the Clippers 3/15/12, and signed for one year, $5.6MM with the Sixers on 7/6/12.
  • Marco Belinelli signed a qualifying offer of $3,377,604 from the Pelicans on 12/13/11. He signed for one year, $1.957MM with the Bulls on 7/24/12.
  • Spencer Hawes signed a qualifying offer of $4,051,024 from the Sixers on 12/10/11. He re-signed with the Sixers for two years, $13.1MM on 7/12/12.
  • Raymond Felton signed a qualifying offer of $5,501,196 from the Hornets on 9/23/09. Signed with the Knicks for two years, $14.56MM on 7/12/10.
  • Ben Gordon signed a qualifying offer of $6,404,750 from the Bulls on 10/1/08. Signed with the Pistons for five years, $58MM on 7/8/09.
  • Robert Swift signed a qualifying offer of $3,579,131 from the Thunder on 9/11/08. Has not signed another NBA contract.
  • Mickael Pietrus signed a qualifying offer of $3,470,771 from the Warriors on 10/1/07. Signed with the Magic for four years, $21.2MM on 7/10/08.
  • Melvin Ely signed a qualifying offer of $3,303,813 from the Hornets on 10/2/06. He was traded to the Spurs on 2/13/07, and agreed to sign for two years, $1,893,739 (minimum salary) with the Pelicans on 9/13/07.
  • Vladimir Radmanovic signed a qualifying offer of $3,166,155 from the Thunder on 9/19/05. He was traded to the Clippers on 2/14/06, and agreed to sign for five years, $30.247MM with the Lakers on 7/12/06.
  • Stromile Swift signed a qualifying offer of $5,993,105 from the Grizzlies on 9/30/04. Signed with the Rockets for four years, $22.4MM on 8/2/05.
  • Michael Olowokandi signed a qualifying offer of $6,061,214 from the Clippers on 9/23/02. Signed with the Timberwolves for three years, $16,226,100 on 7/17/03.
  • Rasho Nesterovic signed a qualifying offer of $2,436,813 from the Timberwolves on 8/25/02. Signed with the Spurs for six years, $42MM on 7/16/03.

Note: Retired team names (Charlotte Bobcats, New Orleans Hornets, Seattle SuperSonics) have been updated to the current names to avoid confusion. 

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Update On Restricted Free Agents

July 21st, 2014 at 10:07am CST by Chuck Myron

The only two unsigned players remaining from the latest edition of the Hoops Rumors Free Agent Power Rankings are restricted free agents Eric Bledsoe and Greg Monroe, and that’s not altogether surprising. Negotiations with restricted free agents often drag on, as rival suitors fear the team holding the power to match offers will exercise that right. Still, this year’s market for restricted free agents has been fairly robust, and only five remain without deals, as our Free Agent Tracker shows. Here’s the latest on each of them:

Eric Bledsoe:

There’s reportedly a wide gulf between Bledsoe, who’s seeking a max deal that would be worth $84,789,500 over five years, and the Suns, who’ve offered four years and $48MM. The Bucks have been in pursuit and apparently discussed an offer sheet with the point guard, but they don’t possess the cap flexibility necessary to make an offer substantially more than what the Suns have on the table, unless they can clear salary via trade. There were some around the NBA who thought agent Rich Paul tried to sell clubs on Bledsoe as they came to make pitches for fellow Paul client LeBron James earlier this month. Still, aside from the Suns, none of the teams who spoke with Paul about LeBron have subsequently been linked to Bledsoe. The Jazz had reportedly been prepared to make an offer to Bledsoe as free agency began, but they used most of their cap room to retain Gordon Hayward, their own restricted free agent.

Greg Monroe:

The Pistons apparently had serious talks with the Blazers about a sign-and-trade that ended when the Blazers came to terms with Chris Kaman. The reported interest from the Magic is “lukewarm at best,” as Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press wrote earlier this month. Monroe visited the Verizon Center in Washington, home of the Wizards, whose interest was identified as early as January, but the Wizards are over the cap now. The Pistons and Pelicans reportedly had talks about a sign-and-trade involving Ryan Anderson, but there’s been little movement on that front since the report emerged on the first day of free agency. The Hawks made contact soon after free agency began, and the Cavs mulled a run too, though that was before Cleveland signed LeBron James.

Aron Baynes:

The Spurs hope to retain the center and will reportedly match any reasonable offer.

Shelvin Mack:

No reports since the start of free agency. The combo guard expressed a desire in May to re-sign with the Hawks.

Mike Scott:

Rival suitors were apparently confident as free agency began that they could snatch him away from the Hawks, though like Mack, he said in May that he would like to return to Atlanta.

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