Qualifying Offers - A question

[evildallas]

Last year in the very contentious Cleveland/Anderson Varajeo negotiations, Cleveland obviously extended a qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent. However I recall that later in the process the reports were that 1 year qualifying offer wasn't available for him to sign instead the only thing they were willing to do was a 3 year deal. He was a long hold out until his agent convinced Charlotte to extend an offer sheet that Cleveland matched.

I am curious what is the rule concerning offer sheets (primarily because of Josh Smith). Does that 1 year qualifying offer have to be left as available even if it is initially refused by the free agent? Can the teams qualifying offer be a longer term deal as long as it exceeds the first year value of the qualifying offer? Were the rules concerning Anderson different because he was a second round pick? Was the report about the one year qualifying offer being off the table inaccurate?

Thanks for any info you can provide. I just want to understand what options the major RFAs have if they decide they want to seek their freedom via the qualifying offer system.

[killbuckner]

I believe that you can set the QO to expire on October 2nd and you will still retain the Right Of First Refusal (ROFR). He let the deadline pass where the QO expired, at that point Varejao didn't have the option of taking the 1 year contract anymore.

Yes- that QO has to be left on the table until October 2nd unless the FA agrees to let it be removed.

I should mention that before july 23rd a team is allowed to withdraw its QO and the player can't do anything about it. At that point they become an UFA.

[evildallas]

Thanks, I had a feeling that you would know.