Cavs: 3 things to know about a contract for Collin Sexton
Cavs: 3 things to know about a contract for Collin Sexton – Restricted free agency rules
If Collin Sexton and his camp decide not to agree to a contract extension at the amount Cleveland is offering, then he will play out this season and hit restricted free agency next summer. This was the situation Jarrett Allen and Lauri Markkanen were both in this summer, and both illustrate potential outcomes for next summer.
Next summer Collin Sexton and the Cavs could agree to a contract as soon as free agency begins, which renders the “restricted” part of his free agency moot. Just as Allen did, re-signing for five years and $100 million, Sexton could ink a deal up to the max directly with the Cavs.
The second outcome is a sign-and-trade, where Sexton negotiates a contract with another team, who then incentivizes the Cavs not to match the deal by setting it up as a trade. Cleveland would sign Sexton and immediately trade him to the other team, getting some sort of asset(s) in return.
One interesting note is that adding a player via sign-and-trade “hard caps” a team, which limits their total team spending to a certain amount. Cleveland is technically hard-capped this season, although they won’t spend enough to get anywhere near that line. If Cleveland is the one sending the player (like the Chicago Bulls) they are not hard-capped due to that trade, although they would still be if they received a player via sign-and-trade or used their full mid-level exception.
The third outcome is that Sexton signs an offer sheet with another team. That contract has to follow certain guidelines and will be for less overall money than the maximum he could get re-signing with the Cavs. Once he signs the offer sheet the Cavs have 72 hours to match the contract or to let him “walk” in free agency.
Finally, Sexton could sign the qualifying offer. To make Sexton a restricted free agent and retain match rights, the Cavaliers extend a one-year “qualifying offer” to him. Technically Sexton could forgo a new contract with the Cavs or another team and sign the one-year deal, and thus become an unrestricted free agent the following year. No high-level player has ever done this, as the amount of the offer is set at a low bar (estimated at $7.07 million for Sexton next summer). A player would make much less, and lose long-term security, to secure the flexibility to sign somewhere else.
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Hopefully these facts help bring you up-to-speed on the contract negotiations between Sexton and the Cavs, what the guidelines and rules are, and what the potential outcomes are. It should also give you a window into what to expect in the coming years when the rest of this young core comes due for a raise.