The Los Angeles Lakers announced that they extended qualifying offers to Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves on Tuesday, making both players restricted free agents ahead of the opening of NBA free agency on Friday.
Unlike unrestricted free agents, teams can match any offer to their own restricted free agents. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams now have just 24 hours to do so. Players can also simply accept the qualifying offer — for Reaves, it’s worth $2.2 million, while Hachimura’s is worth $7.7 million — and play out the year on the one-year deal to hit unrestricted free agency next summer, but that almost never happens (Greg Monroe with the Detroit Pistons is a rare example).