Why Are the NBA’s Biggest Restricted Free Agents Still Unsigned?

The current wave of NBA free agency has seen Shai Gilgeous-Alexander become the league’s first $70 million per year player, while the Rockets landed Kevin Durant. 

It hasn’t gone as swimmingly for restricted free agents. 

Four of the NBA’s most prominent restricted free agents remain unsigned as summer league is set to start in Las Vegas on Thursday, which marks the league’s final big event before it goes dark until preseason camps in September. 

Josh Giddey (Bulls), Jonathan Kuminga (Warriors), Cam Thomas (Nets), and Quentin Grimes (Sixers) are all currently unsigned despite being among their teams’ best players the past season. The NBA went into the offseason with nine restricted free agents; the other five agreed to smaller deals to stay with their current team, including Pacers forward Isaiah Jackson, who tore his Achilles in the season-opener. 

Restricted free agency happens when a player’s contract expires, but the team has the right to match any offer sheet the player signs with another team, allowing the original team to retain them. 

The four players who should have a market find themselves without a home when few teams have cap space, while others, such as the Celtics, have slashed payroll to avoid the dreaded second apron. 

Warriors star Draymond Green posted on Threads that the league’s new collective bargaining agreement has “put an end to free agency” as teams go cheaper to avoid the penalties the CBA triggers for teams with high payrolls. For instance, a team’s first-round pick drops to 30th overall after it’s in the second apron for multiple seasons. It also takes away the exceptions teams have to sign players. 

ESPN front office insider Bobby Marks disagreed with Green, noting the 50 players who signed extensions during the season, which ate into the teams’ cap space. 

“The [restricted free agents] are impacted because more players extended, thus taking teams off the board to spend in [free agency],” Marks wrote. “Plus, history has shown that even if teams had $$ to spend, they don’t on an offer sheet to RFA’s.”

Just two players in the past three offseasons have seen their team match a competing offer from another team: DeAndre Ayton, who had an offer sheet from the Pacers matched by the Suns in 2022, and Matisse Thybulle a year later. Thybulle had a three-year, $33 million offer with the Mavericks, but had the deal matched by the Trail Blazers. 

Thomas, Grimes, and Kuminga had career scoring years for their respective teams and now find a return at their asking price harder than before free agency. Through a trade with the Nuggets, the Nets acquired Michael Porter Jr., who has a similar game to Thomas as a high-volume shooter and is already being paid $40 million per season, making him a bit redundant on the roster. 

Grimes emerged as a bright spot for the Sixers in an injury-ravaged season, but the team still has roughly $250 million tied up between Joel Embiid and Paul George over the next four seasons, which limits the price of a return. 

Kuminga, 22, was once thought to be the future of the Warriors, but is likely headed out of the Bay area in a sign-and-trade as the team tries to capitalize on the final years of Steph Curry’s career. 

All four players are too good to go into next season unsigned, but how long they wait and what they sign for will hang over them until they come off the board.