Does restricted free agency still work for the NBA and its players? Did it ever?

New York Times

3 days ago

Most offseason business is done for NBA teams, with a few notable exceptions. Golden State's Jonathan Kuminga, Brooklyn's Cam Thomas, Philadelphia's Quentin Grimes and Chicago's Josh Giddey, all restricted free agents, remain unsigned. With no other teams dangling offers, the teams and their players are in protracted staring contests, with no end in sight.
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Here at The Athletic, we've looked into each individual case. However, writers Tony Jones and Eric Koreen had some thoughts on restricted free agency as a concept. Here, they discuss its merits, whether it is a relic of a past economic reality and if it can be tweaked.
Koreen: I don't want to delve right into hot-take artistry, so let me say: The Oklahoma City Thunder won the Alex Caruso-Giddey trade. Caruso played an essential role in helping the Thunder win their first title. Winning the title is the whole dang point.
But Giddey was solid as a Chicago Bull. To close the season, he averaged 21.2 points, 10.7 rebounds and 9.3 assists in 19 games after the All-Star break, shooting 45.7 percent on 4.3 3s a game, attempting 5.8 free throws per game. Did he rescue the Bulls from their fate as Play-In fodder? He is but one man, so no. But he was good!
Now he is one of The Restricted Four. None of them are all-stars, but they are all young with utility. As RFAs, their teams can wait for other teams to give them offer sheets, with the right to match. The only team with significant cap room this summer, the Nets, declined to use their space in that way (more on that later). So now, the four can negotiate with their teams, hoping to come to a long-term deal, or sign a one-year qualifying offer — in Giddey's case, $11.1 million, the richest of the bunch — allowing them to become unrestricted free agents in 2026.
I feel most for Giddey this year because he was useful in Oklahoma City and figured out how to contribute there. Still, he is stuck in this scenario. To review quickly, restricted free agency was introduced after the 1999 lockout, a reaction to young players reaching unrestricted free agency too quickly for the owners' liking. (The rookie scale itself came into effect in 1995, a reaction to deals such as Glenn Robinson's 10-year contract after being the first pick in 1994). It was just another tool to tie a player to the team that drafts him, with the team holding more of the power.
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By now, we understand that the best young players are going to get paid, regardless. Perhaps teams will find common cause with lesser rotation players, hoping to offer long-term certainty in exchange for an annual discount.
Let's start big, Tony: Do you like the way restricted free agency works?
Jones: I like the way it works, as it gives franchises — specifically small-market franchises — control up to as many as nine years, which allows them to retain the star talent they drafted. But RFA looks like a casualty of this new collective bargaining agreement. Teams are more hesitant, understandably so, given the penalties, to spend a bundle of money. They are more careful about who they are spending their money on, and that's frozen the RFA market.
In years past, Giddey's performance might have earned him that big offer sheet. The same goes for Grimes, who emerged as a starting-level shooting guard over the past season. Of course, context is everything. We are talking about four guys who are affected here. Not one of them has affected winning on a grand scale.
When you watch Golden State play, there is a reason Kuminga, for all of his talent, is on the bench so often. If you watch the Nets play, it's clear why Thomas doesn't have a market in RFA. Grimes and Giddey proved to be good players. But they also broke out primarily in March, when at least the Sixers were doing everything they could to lose every game possible and when many teams in the league were simply counting down the days to summer vacation. I maintain that putting up numbers in March requires context.
That being said, Grimes projects to be important to what Philadelphia does this season. Giddey projects to be important to what the Bulls do. Thomas and Kuminga? They have yet to prove they contribute anything but their own statistics at the NBA level, and that's why their markets don't exist.
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Is this something you agree with, Eric?
Koreen: There is a lot to consider there. I think their markets don't exist for a few reasons. I'm not going to ferociously defend their games, and I partly agree with your last statement. Teams will not bend over backward to sign those guys, with reason. However, the unique context of this summer, with only one team operating with cap space, is a huge factor. That the Nets were looking to rent that space out to get future picks basically eliminated the cap-space teams. This is where I go back to yelling about rewarding teams for not trying to win, as I did in March. If the Nets were not guaranteed a top-five pick if they end up as the worst team in the league, they would surely be more aggressive in trying to sign players who could help them next year. Instead, they did financial favors for Denver and Atlanta for picks, not caring a lick about the short-term.
I digress. With the way teams are building out their future payrolls — look at all the expiring money the Clippers have in 2027, for example — the death of free agency, including RFA, might have been overstated. This year might be an extreme example of a trend and not a vision of the future. However, I want to quibble with something you said: that it is good teams can 'control' their drafted players for so long.
I get it. I was a teenage Raptors fan when Tracy McGrady left Toronto after three seasons, robbing us of years of T-Mac/Air Canada Eastern Conference supremacy. But our colleague David Aldridge wrote earlier this year in favor of abolishing the draft. I don't agree with him, but I also think that effectively tying a player to his franchise for so long, given that the one-year qualifying offer doesn't come close to matching his long-term earning potential, is inherently unfair.
I have some ideas about how to rework things, but do you think this system is fair to the players (keeping in mind they make millions of dollars to play basketball; this is all in context of the system)?
Jones: Fair isn't the word I would use. I do think that because of the new CBA, where teams have to be vigilant on who and what they are spending their money on, the system is tough. This has become so much more of a business. In the past, you could drop $20-25 million on a starting shooting guard such as Grimes, who I think contributes to winning, and if need be, trade the contract a year or two down the road. Those days are over.
And that's what makes the RFA market difficult. We are also seeing what the NBA values and doesn't value in terms of skill. Thomas and Kuminga are both extreme ball-in-hand players. If they don't have the ball in their hands, they aren't effective. This is what they have put on tape in four years. In the NBA, if you are a ball-in-hand player, you'd better be one of the best 20 offensive players in the league. Otherwise, you need role-playing skills. You need to be a 3-and-D guy, a floor general or a rim protector.
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What makes me feel for Grimes is that he is versatile enough to play all across the backcourt and can be a role player. What I like about Giddey is that he can run an offense, although he is similar to Thomas and Kuminga in that he largely needs the ball in his hands to be effective.
The business world and reality of the RFA market, combined with what the players have proven to be as NBA players, is why we are seeing the freeze. I believe if any of the four did more than very rarely flash star potential, even in this difficult market, somebody would have moved enough mountains to create the space for an offer sheet. Or their own teams would have.
What are some potential resolutions to the business side of this?
Koreen: I agree with your assessment of things in these cases. If the CBA limits how teams plan, that will especially be the case with RFA, when your aggression isn't even guaranteed to get you a player. And no, none of these guys are certain difference-makers even at a top-40 level. Beyond that, the CBA is bargained collectively. Both sides agreed to this. I can only get so worked up about it.
Still, I can't get the Kuminga/Golden State issue out of my mind. The Warriors don't want Kuminga, and Kuminga doesn't want to be in The Bay. Yet, the Warriors weren't willing to forgo extending him a qualifying offer ($7.9 million for 2025-26), the mechanism that keeps him restricted instead of unrestricted. Thus far, Kuminga doesn't want to accept it. Given what we know about the risks of an 82-game season on the body, I don't blame him. I'd want to lock in a longer deal, too.
The problem lies with the qualifying offer, then. Right now, it is 135 percent of your previous contract, in most cases. Of course, you have a window, during the offseason after the player's third year, to agree to an extension and avoid any sort of free agency following his fourth year.
So, let's keep that — except if the two sides don't come to a deal, the qualifying offer is 225 percent of the previous salary (or, make up your own formula, like the NFL's franchise tag), which makes the one-year deal more enticing for the player and more problematic for the team. Maybe with the raised qualifying offer, you extend the window for teams to exclusively negotiate with their pending RFAs. Essentially, make the team have to make a hard choice about the player's future, with more paths to unrestricted free agency.
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I get the importance of teams having vehicles to keep their rosters together, especially as that seems more fleeting with the new CBA. But I also think tying a player to a team like this is, frankly, wrong. These teams are being cowardly here, or 'protecting the asset' in business-speak. Do you believe in the player or not? It feels like players deserve an extra smidgen of leverage, especially if they wind up in a situation that doesn't work for them.
Jones: You made a terrific point here, Eric, and it's a point worth exploring. For all of the warts displayed by some of the players we are talking about, the teams are essentially holding on to them just because they can, and that's wrong. So, maybe it's time for some tweaks to RFA. These four teams have cost the players money, or at least taken away the chance for them to get that payday elsewhere.
So, here is what I propose: If a player goes into restricted free agency, that player has a good portion of the offseason to either re-sign with his team or sign an offer sheet from another team. If none of that has happened by, say, Aug. 15, the player has two options, and the team has two options. The team can either keep the qualifying offer on the table or rescind it. The player can either accept the qualifying offer, if the team still has it on the table, or go straight into unrestricted free agency.
That, I believe, will keep the basics of RFA in place. It will give teams a great runway to keep their guys, but it will also prevent teams from doing what we are seeing now, which is essentially freezing the market.
How does that sound? Of course, there will be tweaks, but is the premise a solid one?
Koreen: The biggest reason I'm against that is our vacation time, Tony. Do you like taking time off? Dragging free agency into August in a real, codified way? Guh!
I have trouble reconciling that with how free agency actually works, because it would still put players in a rough position if the qualifying offers were rescinded. It's unlikely rival teams would hold off on their main activity until then, so will a competitive market exist at that point, even if the players become unrestricted? In that case, the qualifying offer would have to be a mutual option, where if either side opts into it, it becomes guaranteed. Even in that case, I'd favor putting the qualifying offer at a higher percentage of the previous salary.
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As we spoke about, we're talking about a small number of players in what might turn out to be an outlier of an offseason. With all the different team motivations at play, though, the NBPA should have RFA in mind next time the CBA is up for negotiation — if not as a priority, then as something that can be tinkered with a little.
(Top photo of Jonathan Kuminga:)