Thompson lets deadline pass without accepting Cavs' qualifying offer
Extending a summer-long standoff, restricted free-agent forward Tristan Thompson allowed the Oct. 1 deadline to pass without picking up the $6.8-million qualifying offer he'd been issued by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Thompson has reportedly been holding firm to a demand for a maximum contract. The Cavs have reportedly offered a five-year, $80-million deal and may be willing to go higher than that number, but the sides are yet to meet anywhere in the middle. Thompson remains a restricted free agent and will continue trying to negotiate a long-term deal, but his primary leverage has now expired.
If he'd signed the qualifying offer, Thompson would have entered unrestricted free agency at season's end. In allowing the deadline to pass, he's relinquished that possibility, barring an unlikely one-year contract offer from Cleveland. Thompson's agent, Rich Paul, had said that if his client signed the qualifying offer, he would not re-sign with the Cavs next summer.
Thompson has not reported to Cleveland's training camp, and can now be considered a holdout, though without a contract he's not subject to any fines or punishment for his absence.
Cavs general manager David Griffin said Thursday that he expected Thompson to be at camp "in some form or fashion" on Friday.
As an RFA, Thompson can still sign an offer sheet from another team, but the only team with the requisite cap space to offer more than the five-year, $80-million deal Cleveland put forth on the first day of free agency is the rebuilding Portland Trail Blazers. And even in that case, the Cavaliers would have the right to match the offer sheet.
While the Cavaliers already had leverage with frontcourt depth, Kevin Love, Timofey Mozgov, and Anderson Varejao are all coming off surgeries. Now, Thompson has little recourse outside of a Cavs deal, though they may still believe Thompson's value in a championship season provides the requisite leverage for a deal.
Thompson's camp knows the franchise is going all-in to bring the city its first sports championship in over 50 years, and the team has repeatedly floated that it believes there are other teams willing to make a maximum offer if Thompson were to become an unrestricted free agent.
The 24-year-old Thompson averaged 8.5 points and eight rebounds last season, shooting 54.7 percent from the floor and taking on a larger role in the playoffs as necessitated by injuries.
The only real upshot of this, then, is that Thompson has surrendered an ostensibly valuable bargaining chip. He and Paul have been dangling the threat of signing the qualifying offer all summer, but Cleveland seemingly called the bluff, and now the two sides appear as firmly dug in as ever.
The stalemate drags on.