Severn Hoos wrote:nate33 wrote:Severn Hoos wrote:What is Rice's status? They will have to offer him a QO next summer (2015) in order to keep his rights, correct? Obviously, I fully expect they will do so, and assuming he accepts the QO, does he then become a RFA in 2016? Or a UFA? I suppose it's possible we could have a Parsons situation on our hands, but I'm not seeing Rice get a $15M per offer. If they can keep him using the low cap hold and then re-sign him after Durant (or whoever) signs as a FA, that would be a huge boost to the depth issue they're sure to have in the 2016-17 season.
2nd round picks (or any other non-1st round pick) are restricted free agents after 3 years. So we would put forth a qualifying offer in 2015 and have the right to match any offer. Some other team could muck up our plan like what Cuban did to Morey, but my guess is that Rice wouldn't garner that kind of attention. The most likely scenario is that, since our qualifying offer is greater than the vet minimum (by about 25%), other teams would pass him over looking to sign other guys for vet minimum contracts rather than having to use cap exceptions or cap room to make a play for Rice. We would keep Rice for about $1.2M in 2015/16, and then he would have a cap hold of about $3M in 2016.
Thanks, nate -that makes sense. So technically, he's a RFA both this coming summer (2015) and the next (2016), assuming he signs the QO?
He'd be a RFA in 2015 and a UFA in 2016.