With training camps set to begin in about three weeks, there haven’t been many updates on the NBA’s lone remaining restricted free agent, former No. 5 overall pick Isaac Okoro.
Okoro provides real value to the Cavaliers — he’s their best on-ball defender and is frequently tasked with guarding the opposing teams’ best perimeter player. Even with a major size disadvantage, Okoro did an admirable job defending Paolo Banchero in Cleveland’s first-round playoff series vs. Orlando.
The issue is on the other end of the court, where Okoro is an inconsistent shooter and scorer whom opposing defenses frequently ignore. After shooting a career-best 39.1% from three-point range in the 2023/24 regular season, he converted just 25.7% of his outside looks in the postseason.
The Cavaliers extended a qualifying offer — essentially just a one-year contract offer — to Okoro in June, granting them the right of first refusal in negotiations. That QO is worth $11,828,974. If the 23-year-old accepts the QO, he would become an unrestricted free agent in 2025.
In late July, Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com reported that the Cavs also made Okoro a multiyear offer, roughly in the range of $8-10MM annually. Cleveland certainly seems to be in the driver’s seat in negotiations and hasn’t budged on that stance, according to reports last month from Fedor and ESPN’s Brian Windhorst.
One of the primary issues for Okoro is the Pistons are the only team in the league that has cap room available, and there has been no indication they’re interested in testing the Cavaliers with a long-term offer that Cleveland could match. There also haven’t been any rumors about teams potentially using the non-taxpayer mid-level exception to make Okoro an offer.
For what it’s worth, the Cavs used the stretch provision to spread Ricky Rubio‘s $1,274,015 dead-money cap hit for 2024/25 across three seasons. Rubio will now count against Cleveland’s books for $424,672 annually through ’26/27. That might not sound significant, but it could help the Cavs re-sign Okoro while avoiding the luxury tax — a key consideration for a team whose payroll is set to balloon in ’25/26, when Evan Mobley‘s rookie scale extension kicks in.
Aside from accepting the QO, re-signing with the Cavs on a multiyear deal, or signing with another team (again, the Cavs could choose to match), there’s one other viable outcome. The Cavs reportedly discussed a sign-and-trade with the Nets involving Okoro and Dorian Finney-Smith, but it sounds like those talks didn’t get serious.
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