But, as one league general manager told Sporting News this week, their potential free agency next summer has cooled the market for each.
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“I think any one of us would be wary of getting involved in a trade for either player,” the GM said. “Their teams overvalue them in terms of making trades, they don’t want to give them away for nothing. There’s no reason to give up significant assets for players who probably will be available next summer. That doesn’t mean a deal can’t get done, but it is complicated.”
The Pistons and Bucks, for example, were able to work a deal involving restricted free-agent point guard Brandon Jennings at the end of July last summer, with Milwaukee getting Brandon Knight, Khris Middleton and Viacheslav Kravtsov in return.
But sign-and-trades will be tough to come by. Both Monroe and Bledsoe are said to want deals in the range of five years and the maximum, but Bledsoe is being offered four years and $48 million. Monroe denied a report he was offered five years, $60 million by Detroit. Teams are, naturally, not eager to shell out that kind of money while also giving up players.
If there is no other option, Bledsoe and Monroe would have to sign the one-year qualifying offer, presented before the start of free agency in order to make potential free agents restricted. It’s rare that such offers are actually signed — only 13 former first-round picks have signed qualifying offers in restricted free agency since the rule came into effect 15 years ago.
There can be benefits to taking the qualifying offer for both Bledsoe and Monroe — they can be unrestricted free agents next summer if they do. The risk is injury, of course, because the qualifying offer is just one year, with no security.
But the risk, too, is that the players won’t particularly improve in the coming season, and will find the market for them is still icy next summer.
That’s what happened with Raymond Felton, for example. Felton had the best year of his career heading into restricted free agency, but could not get the Bobcats into the five-year, $45 million contract range he was hoping for (the Bobcats were offering in the range of $30 million). Felton regressed some the next season, and wound up with only a two year, $14.6 million contract the following summer.
Nick Young went through much the same thing after signing his qualifying offer with the Wizards in the wake of the 2011 lockout. He wanted a contract in the range of $9 million per year, but Washington was not going to come close to that. The Wizards eventually traded him to the Clippers, and the best Young could do the next summer was a one-year deal with the Sixers, for $6 million.
You can go all the way back to one of the first restricted free agents in the league to sign his qualifying offer, former No. 1 pick Michael Olowokandi. After averaging 11.1 points and 8.9 rebounds in 2001-02, he wanted a contract in excess of $10 million per year. The Clippers had no interest in that.
Olowokandi suffered hernia and knee injuries the next year, limiting him to 36 games. He wound up with just a three-year contract from Minnesota worth $16.2 million.
Now the good news: Ben Gordon. In the summer of 2008, the Bulls were grappling with the prospect of paying budding stars Luol Deng and Gordon. In the end, they signed Deng and made Gordon an offer of six years, $59 million. Gordon turned it down.
He then averaged 20.7 points in the regular season and 24.3 points in the playoffs, bolstering his value. The Pistons gave him a five-year, $55 million contract in 2009.
For Monroe and Bledsoe, the qualifying-offer story probably would be closer to Gordon than the Felton-Young-Olowokandi scenarios. Both players are young and have improved steadily. More than that, both will enter a market next summer that could feature about half the league with cap space to spend.
That’s not to say the max-contract dreams both players have entertained will come true — that just has not been the history of restricted free agency. But there probably will be good contracts waiting for them next summer.
