Jusuf Nurkic: 3 potential landing spots in 2018 free agency
By Ty Delbridge
1. Portland Trail Blazers
If Nurkic does not get an offer, he will end up taking his one year, $4.75 million qualifying offer and then hit unrestricted free agency next summer. This would give Portland another year to figure out what it wants to do with him long-term.
Nurkic’s age and skill would typically be in demand by other franchises. But this free agency market has a lot of centers in it, not too many teams need guys like Nurkic, and not many teams have cap space. ESPN‘s Zach Lowe said Nurkic turned down a “rich offer” by the Blazers during the season and said on his podcast that he expects Nurkic to take this one-year qualifying offer.
"Lowe said, “Who’s offering Nurkic more than the mid-level? What’s the team? Nobody needs centers and there’s no cap room.”"
The Kings and Hawks could each free up the requisite cap space to make a compelling offer that would make Rip City think twice about matching, but Sacramento already has young frontcourt players in Willie Cauley-Stein, Harry Giles, Marvin Bagley III and Skal Labissiere to test out.
Atlanta passed on its chance at a young big in the 2018 NBA Draft by trading up for Trae Young, which makes the Hawks a potential threat. Then again, this rebuilding squad may not envision the 23-year-old Nurkic as their center of the future, content with letting the team be bad for awhile as it looks to the draft for franchise-defining talent.
Next: 2018 NBA free agency tracker: Grades for every deal so far
That leaves Portland as the most likely destination for the Bosnian Beast, most likely settling on a qualifying offer that will allow him to rejoin the market next summer when teams should have more cap space to play around with.