A handful of teams made their qualifying offer calls Monday, and the biggest takeaway was simple: several recent draft picks are moving on, while a couple of centers got the kind of tender that keeps the door open.
In Milwaukee, the Bucks decided not to extend a qualifying offer to forward Ousmane Dieng, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. That choice sends Dieng into unrestricted free agency, though Scotto adds that the Bucks still have “significant” interest in working out a deal with the former 11th overall pick.
Dieng didn’t find a regular role with the Thunder, but once he landed in Milwaukee in February, he showed enough to make the Bucks take notice. Over 30 games with the team, including 20 starts, the 23-year-old put up 11.0 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists in 26.8 minutes per night.
The financial piece matters here too. Dieng’s qualifying offer would have come in at $8.77MM, so Milwaukee may prefer to talk its way into a more manageable agreement instead of risking him taking the QO, picking up an implicit no-trade clause for the season, and reaching unrestricted free agency in 2027.
Brooklyn also passed on a pair of qualifying offers. The Nets declined to tender Ochai Agbaji an $8.77MM QO, Scotto reports, and they also let Jalen Wilson go without a $3MM qualifying offer. Both players will now head to unrestricted free agency after finishing the season in reserve roles for the Nets.
Miami made a different call with Keshad Johnson, though not the one that would have kept him under team control. Kelly Iko of The Athletic confirms that the Heat did not issue Johnson a qualifying offer, meaning he’ll become an unrestricted free agent. Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel, who first reported Johnson was unlikely to get a QO, adds that the 6-foot-6 forward has been invited to Summer League and remains a candidate for a two-way deal with Miami.
Orlando, meanwhile, kept Colin Castleton in the mix by giving him a two-way qualifying offer, which makes him a restricted free agent, a league source told Jason Beede of The Orlando Sentinel. Castleton played in just four games for the Magic in 2025/26, but he had already logged time with four other teams from 2023-25 and appeared in 42 games overall. He’s now entering his final year of two-way eligibility.
Dallas also extended a qualifying offer of the two-way variety, giving center Moussa Cisse another one-year, two-way deal equivalent. Cisse carved out stretches in the Mavericks’ frontcourt rotation last season and finished with averages of 4.5 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks in 13.9 minutes across 38 appearances.
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Jaylen Brown has obvious appeal in that kind of rebuild, especially for a Bucks team that would need a reliable primary scorer and a player built to live in the spotlight. Brown has shown he can thrive when given more of the offensive load, and that kind of profile is exactly why a possible move would make sense on Milwaukees end, even if the mechanics of getting there are far from simple and the pieces Boston might want in return would shape the entire conversation. [Read more 🡒]
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Bucks Are Closing In On A Franchise Defining Ja Morant Clue
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Ryan Rollins, Kevin Porter Jr., Tyler Herro, Kasparas Jakuionis, Brayden Burries, AJ Green and Gary Harris are all part of the equation, with Gary Trent Jr.s situation still unresolved, so adding another guard would only sharpen the logjam. That is why the more interesting question may not be whether the Bucks can chase a star point guard, but whether their best path is to resist that urge and use the rest of the offseason to address the forward spots instead. [Read more 🡒]