Opinion: I am Sick of Restricted Free Agency
I am writing this post and willing to admit that I do not know many of the intricacies that lie behind the concept that I am about to dispute. While I am sure that there is good reasoning behind the notion of “restricted free agency,” I must say that I am growing tired of it.
Under the rules of restricted free agency, a restricted FA may sign an offer sheet with another
team, but if the player’s current team decides to match the offer, the player must return to his old team. This allows for teams to safeguard against losing their players without having the opportunity to keep them. If a player decides that he does not want to stay with his current team, he may accept a 1 year qualifying offer or simply push for a sign-and-trade to the team of his choice.
In my opinion, this off-season has really shed light on the downfalls of restricted free agency. Andre Iguodala, Emeka Okafor, Josh Smith, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, Andris Biedrins… what do they all have in common? They are all restricted FAs right now whose contract statuses appear to be unsettled for this upcoming season. At the outset of the off-season, unrestricted FAs such as Corey Maggette, Elton Brand, and Baron Davis received contracts fairly quickly, with all of them changing teams. Now, nearly a month after the start of the FA period, big-time names are still out there to be had. One problem is that because of the restrictive nature of the salary cap, nearly all of these players either have to sign with their current teams or hope for a sign-and-trade. These players all missed out on the chance to land more money because their restricted status would require any team to tie up cap space for 7 days while waiting for the player’s current team to possibly match the offer. Restricted free agency has restricted player movement in the NBA and has really slowed down the off-season. Josh Childress was a restricted FA who was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch unrestricted FAs receive large deals. Now he is in Europe.
Maybe I am just growing antsy for something to happen, but I really do believe that there is no true point to restricted free agency. My belief is that a player should either be a FA free to sign with whichever team he wants, or he is simply under contract to play with his current team.
