Cam Thomas, Josh Giddey, Quentin Grimes, and Jonathan Kuminga are the remaining restricted free agents from the first round of the 2021 draft. All four of these players are in an interesting situation: they’ve all showed, in their own way, that they deserve a sizable second contract, but don’t seem to have the leverage for a variety of factors to demand it. For all of them, they are getting squeezed by the never-ending adjustment to the new cap environment introduced by the 2023 CBA, with its aprons and penalties. So, there’s just not much cap room or flexibility left to go around for these guys. And, because the nature of restricted free agency has always been that the player needs to go and get a contract from another team to get some leverage (see: Deandre Ayton in 2022), this year’s crop is just stuck.
Let’s look at each of these guys.
The Candidates (not ranked)
The Pure Hooper - Cam Thomas
Per-game stats for the last 2 seasons (91 games): 22.9 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists on 44.1/35.9/86.4 shooting splits.
Cam Thomas and Collin Sexton belong in the same conversation in a lot of ways. They are not-big scoring guards who look to shoot first, and for good reason. There’s also been a predominant bias around the league that they can’t be primary options in a starting lineup for a good team, which limits the options of who will pay them good money for their services. Part of the reason that Sexton was traded from the Jazz is that he is too good to not play big minutes for a bad team who needs to develop their up-and-coming-but-two-years-away guards. In the modern NBA, most teams just don’t seem to need guys who do what they do.
So, Cam Thomas seems to have to do one of the following (ignoring the rules of restricted free agency, for a moment): find a good team where he can be their 25 mpg scorer off the bench as a favorite for 6MOTY for years to come, or find a bad team who will pay him to just be around, and trust that he’ll get his chances to showcase his development as a playmaker and defender to potential trade candidates. Whether this is fair/correct or not is another question, because he can truly get buckets.
The Big Point Something - Josh Giddey
Per-game stats for the last 2 seasons (150 games): 13.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, 5.9 assists on 47.0/35.9/79.0 shooting splits.
The one team that does not need Josh Giddey is Cam Thomas’s Brooklyn Nets, given that they picked four point guard/forward/centers in the first round of the 2025 draft. But Josh Giddey, on the court, has followed an interesting track as a player. Other than his three point shooting (which was the biggest concern for him coming into the league, aside from his athleticism), everything else clicked from year 1. Obviously, he’s gotten better overall, but he started out as a high-floor player. Once his hometown Thunder got better, though, there began to be questions about his fit on a contending team like OKC, who thrived on attacking the inside and spraying out for threes (where he wasn’t being guarded), along with ferocious perimeter defense (where he wasn’t very helpful). In the 2023 playoffs, the concerns proved to be legitimate, and he got benched.
Last summer, the Bulls traded Alex Caruso for Josh Giddey, straight up. A lot of people mocked the Bulls in this trade, and the Thunder did end up winning the championship with Caruso as one of their most important players. However, as everyone may have heard, Josh Giddey and the Bulls really turned things around when they finally traded my guy Zach LaVine. He averaged 20/10/9 on 49/45/80 shooting (and a 12-10 record in the games he played in) after averaging 12/7/7 on 45/34/76 shooting up to the trade deadline. Yes, this was expected. We knew Giddey would have a flashy month or two like this. But there’s something there!
The Swiss Army Knife - Quentin Grimes
Per-game stats for the last 2 seasons (126 games): 11.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists on 44.0/36.8/75.7 shooting splits.
Quentin Grimes is the easiest theoretical fit for any team trying to win games, with his clear ability to defend and make smart decisions around higher usage players. However, he’s played for four teams and hasn’t been able to find a role to stick in one place. With the Knicks (who drafted him), his biggest issue was that he wasn’t willing to shoot and he couldn’t stay healthy. He went to Detroit for a forgettable 6-game stint, and then Dallas for a less forgettable stint for the first half of last season. Nico Harrison then dealt him to Philadelphia in exchange for Caleb Martin.
But then, something happened. During Philly’s tank-tastic, Hinkie-esque finish to last season, Quentin Grimes showed that he has more to him than previously thought. Grimes averaged 25/5/5 on 47/38/75 shooting to finish the season, spawning hope in the wasteland that was the 2024-25 76ers. But a problem came up: Grimes is a 6’5 shooting guard. Tyrese Maxey (point/combo guard) is their young max player, Jared McCain (point/combo guard) was on his way to ROTY last year, and VJ Edgecombe was drafted #3 as an undersized shooting guard. At a certain salary number, Grimes just does not fit on this team.
The Enigma - Jonathan Kuminga
Per-game stats for the last 2 seasons (121 games): 15.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.2 assists on 49.9/31.3/71.2 shooting splits.
The Warriors really should have just drafted Franz Wagner at #7 in 2021.
But, Jonathan Kuminga has Aaron Gordon-type athleticism and flashes that are hard to teach at his size. But for Steve Kerr, he’s been the square peg that the Warriors front office has been trying to fit into the round hole which is Kerr’s system. Yes, he could have done a better job with Kuminga, giving him more opportunities to showcase his talent (which, to his credit, he has shown when he’s gotten more slack to go and try stuff). Also, Kuminga’s inability to integrate himself well in the Warriors ecosystem probably says something about his adaptability. All of that being said, it still seems like we don’t know him that well.
Can he shoot? Not really. Can he pass? Not that well. But, when Steph Curry went down in the playoffs last year against the Timberwolves, Kuminga averaged 24.3 points on 55/39/72 shooting. They lost every single one of those games, but all it takes is for one out of 29 teams to see the vision of how he could shine in their environment.
Restricted Free Agency
Kuminga is the only one of these four players to have gotten public attention from other teams, specifically the Kings and, to a lesser extent, the Suns. Each of these players is looking for a contract that’s probably a year or two longer than their team wants to pay, and $8m-10m more per year than what’s being offered. Brooklyn is the only team that can technically make an offer to a player right now through cap space (where the player would sign an “offer sheet” for a contract, and the player’s original team would have 24 hours to match it or let him walk. Once an offer sheet is signed, it removes the ability for that player to be signed-and-traded), but they probably don’t even have enough to pique any of their interest.
So, for a few of these guys, they’ll need some help to find their dream. Honestly, Josh Giddey’s already in a decent place as the man with the ball in his hands, but the Bulls haven’t shown the propensity for doing the right things to win long-term. If Coby White walks next season (because he’s too cheap to extend right now), what’s there for him other than the contract he hopes to get?
So… what if these four players just swapped with each other?
In other words, can we find a happy compromise between these four teams where each ends up happier than if they had to sign their own guy? For the nerds out there, let’s take cap rules and aprons out of this, and assume that they’ll be paying their new player about as much as they would have paid their own guy. It’s not perfect, but let’s just have some fun here.
Brooklyn replaces Cam Thomas with… Quentin Grimes
Why would Brooklyn do this?
As I mentioned before, Brooklyn just drafted four point-somethings in the first round in Egor Demin, Nolan Traore, Ben Saraf, and Danny Wolf. This means that they have to try and put the ball in their hands. By getting Quentin Grimes onto their team, he can naturally fill in as a traditional shooting guard along with Michael Porter Jr. at in the front court, where they can act as steadying presences for the team without gobbling up the usage on the ball. At the same time, Grimes hasn’t shown himself to be a massive floor raiser, which will not hurt their tanking plans.
Why would Grimes want this?
I think that a starting lineup of Egor Demin, Quentin Grimes, MPJ, Clowney, and Claxton has enough youth and spunk to it (with all the youth off the bench) to be fun, and they’d rely on Grimes, as I’m sure he wants. Perhaps he would rather play the 7th man role for the Warriors, but of these four options, I say he’d choose the Nets.
Chicago replaces Josh Giddey with… Cam Thomas
Why would Chicago do this?
The Bulls don’t seem to be drafting with the intent of building around Josh Giddey as their cornerstone. This is the right thing to do (since Giddey’s not an All-NBA player), but drafting two guys in the lottery the past two years who are forwards will make Giddey’s life a lot harder defensively if it ever comes to trying to win games. Cam Thomas is much more complementary to those guys on the macro level, even if Giddey is a better fit as someone who can run the offense. This would allow those guys to stretch their wings more, and would give Billy Donovan the space to find a true identity with their young core (if you can call it that). Chicago is big-game hunting in 2026, and perhaps that’s when they can transition Cam to his Jamal Crawford arc.
The fit with Coby White, you say? I don’t worry too much about it in the short term. And if I were to bet, if they’re contending in a few years, this won’t be a concern.
Why would Thomas want this?
The Bulls need someone with his exact skillset to get buckets and keep their team afloat when it gets bogged down with Noa Essengue and Matas Buzelis showing their youth. Perhaps Cam wants to go somewhere to win, but it seems like this is a spot that can provide him with more of a runway to develop himself into his best NBA role than he would get in Brooklyn with the direction they’re going.
Philadelphia replaces Quentin Grimes with… Jonathan Kuminga
Why would Philadelphia do this?
The Philadelphia are no longer building with Joel Embiid in mind as a reliable cornerstone on the court (no sources cited). Daryl Morey knows the impact that a star can have on a franchise, and at this point, they haven’t found a guy with that kind of ceiling over the next few years. Sure, Paul George could bounce back, and Tyrese Maxey is a lovable player. But Kuminga would give them the slightest chance at a superstar with his skillset and athleticism, especially since Maxey and Edgecombe play exactly the way Kuminga wants to (fast and furious).
Why would Kuminga want this?
I think that Jonathan Kuminga wants to get as far away from playing for Steve Kerr as possible (no sources cited, again), and the Sixers seem to be exactly that. They’re a team in flux, given Embiid’s rapid decline physically, and Kuminga sees himself as a guy who can fill that role. Is it likely to work? Not really. But both sides of this need a miracle of sorts, and it’s the kind of gamble that highly competitive psychos love to make.
Golden State replaces Jonathan Kuminga with… Josh Giddey
Why would Golden State do this?
I don’t think that Giddey, Butler, and Draymond Green (along with Podziemski) would look very good together on a basketball court. But if anyone can make it work, it’s Steph Curry. Steve Kerr has shown an ability to make things work with certain types of players, even if he has shown no ability to make things work with other types of players. I think that they may like the idea of Quentin Grimes, but Giddey has the chance to keep the ball movement legacy going with a higher floor and a clearer path to a decade of starting-level basketball than anyone else on this list.
Why would Giddey want this?
How could one watch the Warriors over the past four years and think that it’s not the type of system that Giddey would die to play in? With his improved shooting and developed defensive acumen (I wouldn’t venture to say he’s good defensively, but he’s smarter on that end than earlier in his career), he and Steve Kerr would make things work as long as they have a cutting-and-moving maniac going off of screens for him to pass to.
Back to reality…
Well, even though none of that will happen, I hope for these guys that they find a setting in which they feel more of an ability to succeed. The Kuminga sweepstakes seem to be heading towards an awful end for the Warriors (I’m not sure how I feel about Kuminga potentially going to Phoenix, but I think it’d be pretty similar to what I said about Philadelphia above… just a shot in the dark), and the Grimes and Thomas situations seem to be some form of: “hey friend, we don’t need you here and won’t prioritize you, but we’re fine with paying you something to hold you over.”
Josh Giddey seems destined to stay, and I think he’ll do a fine job there. But this was inspired by seeing that Golden State may be interested in a double sign-and-trade between him and Kuminga, which could be an enticing thing.. for Golden State. Not sure why Chicago would do that after drafting two power forwards.
Anyways… have a good weekend.
I feel like Cam is the only one of these guys I could realistically see moving (Kuminga probably moves eventually but the longer this goes the less likely it feels like it's gonna happen in the off-season). Even then, I can't fathom him taking any role that isn't starting just because I don't think he sees himself as a 6th man scorer. He wants to lead a starting unit for better or worse.