With coaching camps set to start in about three weeks, there haven’t been many updates on the NBA’s lone remaining restricted free agent, former No. 5 general choose Isaac Okoro.
Okoro offers actual worth to the Cavaliers — he’s their finest on-ball defender and is steadily tasked with guarding the opposing groups’ finest perimeter participant. Even with a serious dimension drawback, Okoro did an admirable job defending Paolo Banchero in Cleveland’s first-round playoff collection vs. Orlando.
The difficulty is on the opposite finish of the courtroom, the place Okoro is an inconsistent shooter and scorer whom opposing defenses steadily ignore. After taking pictures a career-best 39.1% from three-point vary within the 2023/24 common season, he transformed simply 25.7% of his outdoors appears within the postseason.
The Cavaliers prolonged a qualifying supply — primarily only a one-year contract supply — to Okoro in June, granting them the best of first refusal in negotiations. That QO is value $11,828,974. If the 23-year-old accepts the QO, he would change into an unrestricted free agent in 2025.
In late July, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reported that the Cavs additionally made Okoro a multiyear supply, roughly within the vary of $8-10MM yearly. Cleveland actually appears to be within the driver’s seat in negotiations and hasn’t budged on that stance, in line with stories final month from Fedor and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
One of many main points for Okoro is the Pistons are the one crew within the league that has cap room out there, and there was no indication they’re involved in testing the Cavaliers with a long-term supply that Cleveland might match. There additionally haven’t been any rumors about groups probably utilizing the non-taxpayer mid-level exception to make Okoro a suggestion.
For what it’s value, the Cavs used the stretch provision to unfold Ricky Rubio‘s $1,274,015 dead-money cap hit for 2024/25 throughout three seasons. Rubio will now rely in opposition to Cleveland’s books for $424,672 yearly by means of ’26/27. That may not sound important, nevertheless it might assist the Cavs re-sign Okoro whereas avoiding the luxurious tax — a key consideration for a crew whose payroll is ready to balloon in ’25/26, when Evan Mobley‘s rookie scale extension kicks in.
Other than accepting the QO, re-signing with the Cavs on a multiyear deal, or signing with one other crew (once more, the Cavs might select to match), there’s one different viable end result. The Cavs reportedly mentioned a sign-and-trade with the Nets involving Okoro and Dorian Finney-Smith, nevertheless it seems like these talks didn’t get critical.
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