What happens if a restricted free agent doesn't want to stay?

Question

For example:

A player is playing for, say, the LA Clippers. He becomes a restricted free agent. The Clippers GM says that he will match any offer sheet, and the Clippers have enough cap space to do that.

What if the player wants to leave, but doesn't sign an offer sheet because the Clippers will match it?

What are his options?

Answer 1

He only has two options really. He can holdout and try to force the team to trade him or he can try and go over seas. If he holds out though, no matter when he comes back that team(in this case, the Clippers) would still own his rights. Even if he announced his retirement and then came back like 3 years later the Clippers would still own his rights. So his best bet would be not to hold out, try and force the team to sign him to a one year extention, suck it up and play that one year out, cause after that he will be a unrestricted free agent and can sign with who he wants. Like Luol Deng is about to do if the Bulls do not pay him.

Answer 2

What up tlkr_11,

i think the player would still belong to the team.  The Player could probably try to hold out of training camp and eventually try to force the team to trade him away with a sign-and-trade (kind of like Josh Smith and Omeka Okafor's situations right now).  But if the team decides to match the offer- they are basically under contract to play- and if they make the situation ugly- the team can probably start fining him, etc.  But usually when it gets that ugly the team will find a way to trade him.

Nickster

Answer 3

The restricted free agent will tell the Clippers organization to do not match the offer, or he will say he wants to sign with another team. But there is still a chance that he would stay with the current  team that he was on it really depends. Also they can do a sign and trade deal.

Answer 4

Restricted free agents will stay on team, unrestricted will become an unsigned free agent. They can also request a trade/waive