A year ago, the restricted free agent market was crowded deep into September. This time around, Peyton Watson’s sign-and-trade to Cleveland on a new four-year, $88MM deal has thinned the field, leaving just two unsigned RFAs as August winds down.
The first is Pistons center Jalen Duren, who entered the offseason at the top of our list of the summer’s 50 best free agents. Duren is coming off a breakout year that pushed his scoring to 19.5 points per game and kept him in double figures on the glass for the third straight season at 10.5 rebounds per night. He also earned his first All-Star selection, made All-NBA third team, and was widely viewed as the No. 2 player on a 60-win team.
Even with all that, his market hasn’t been straightforward. His playoff run didn’t exactly strengthen his case for a massive long-term payday, since he averaged just 10.2 PPG and 8.5 RPG and even saw reserve big man Paul Reed get the nod over him at times in clutch minutes.
The All-NBA honor gave Duren access to a Rose rule contract, which lets him negotiate up to 30% of the cap instead of the usual 25%. That raises the ceiling on his max deal from $239MM over five seasons to $287MM, and it also raises the stakes in talks with Detroit.
But the biggest factor may be the simplest one: there’s nowhere obvious for him to go. No team has the cap space to make an offer sheet the Pistons would have to seriously sweat, and Detroit has shown no interest in opening the door to a sign-and-trade. Sacramento was floated early in free agency, but the Pistons quickly shut down anything involving Domantas Sabonis.
That leaves Duren with one meaningful lever, and it’s a risky one: the one-year qualifying offer worth $9,615,393. Taking that route would give him trade veto power for 2026/27 and put him on track for unrestricted free agency next summer. The problem is that Detroit is reportedly ready to put $30-35MM annually on the table, which makes the QO a dangerous gamble.
John Hollinger of The Athletic, discussing Duren’s situation this week with Hunter Patterson, noted that unlikely incentives used to be a common way for teams and players to meet in the middle. A team could keep the base salary where it wanted it and add bonuses tied to team or player achievements, creating a path to compromise.
Those incentives have become much less common under the apron rules, though, because even if they don’t count against cap or tax figures unless earned, they still count toward a team’s apron salary. The Nuggets, for instance, would not currently be a second-apron team without $5.6MM in unlikely incentives in Cameron Johnson’s and Aaron Gordon’s contracts.
Still, the expectation is that Duren and the Pistons eventually get a long-term deal done. A contract in the neighborhood of Alperen Sengun’s five-year, $185MM pact with Houston was mentioned as a fair benchmark.
The other unsigned RFA is Clippers swingman Bennedict Mathurin, and his situation is messier in a different way. Acquired from the Pacers in February’s Ivica Zubac trade, Mathurin became a real rotation piece for the Clippers down the stretch in 2025/26, putting up 17.4 points per game in 28.0 minutes a night while carrying a career-high 27.8% usage rate.
The scoring punch is obvious, but so are the rough edges. Mathurin hit just 17-of-82 three-pointers, a 20.7% clip, and his turnover and assist numbers remain nearly even - 502 turnovers to 500 assists over his four-year career.
At 24, he still has appeal as a scorer with upside. The problem for the Clippers is roster math.
Thursday’s addition of veteran wing Max Strus only made things tighter. If the Kawhi Leonard trade is completed as planned, L.A. will sit at 16 players on fully guaranteed contracts, with Cam Christie on a non-guaranteed deal as the 17th.
Even if Johni Broome and Christie are waived, the Clippers would still need another move to make room for Mathurin.
That doesn’t automatically rule out a return, but it does underscore that he may not be a top priority for the front office. Before free agency, there was already chatter that the Clippers might decline to extend a qualifying offer to clear cap space. They ultimately kept the QO on the table, but the fact that they considered moving on says plenty about where Mathurin stood heading into the summer.
Because Mathurin isn’t expected to land anywhere near Duren money, a sign-and-trade looks like the more realistic path. The Pelicans, Bulls, Bucks, and Mavericks have all come up as possible destinations, though most of those teams would be limited in what they could offer because of their tax situations.
If nothing materializes, Mathurin could still take his one-year qualifying offer worth $8,774,590. He has until October 1 to decide, so there’s no immediate clock ticking. Even so, the cleaner outcome would be finding a sign-and-trade to a team that wants him.
That’s the lesson from last year’s unsigned RFAs. Two of the four players who were still without deals in September eventually took qualifying offers.
Quentin Grimes, who signed his QO with the Sixers, later landed a four-year, $60MM deal with the Lakers this summer. Cam Thomas, who took his QO with the Nets, was waived twice last season and remains unsigned this offseason.
For Mathurin, that split path is the warning label: the one-year bet can pay off, but it can just as easily leave a player stuck with fewer answers a year later.
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