A month into the NBA’s 2026 free agency period, we’ve seen scores of signings and trades, with multiple potential needle-movers changing ZIP codes and uniforms — including, most recently and notably, the leading scorer in NBA history trading in sunny Los Angeles for anothercity where I’m told it’s always sunny
That doesn’t mean, though, that the market’s bone-dry. There are still talented players of all shapes, sizes, experience levels and skill sets who might be able to meaningfully help a club next season
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Let’s take a look at some of the best technically available talent still on the board, starting with the literal and figurative biggest prize on the restricted free-agent market:
Jalen Duren
The 22-year-old Duren spent the first six months of his 2025-26 season building a case to argue for a max contract when he hit RFA this summer. He posted career-best scoring marks while getting to the line more often than ever, and maintained elite efficiency — leading the NBA in true shooting percentage — while bearing the largest offensive role of his Pistons tenure on those bowling-ball shoulders. Combine that with a notable leap on the defensive end, and Duren profiled as a top-10-to-20 performer last season by a slew of advanced metrics — as significant a driver of Detroit’s rise to the top of the East as anyone besides Cade Cunningham.
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And then came the final month of the season, which saw Duren tear a gaping hole in that no-doubt max case, turning in a wildly underwhelming postseason in which his scoring, rebounding, interior defense and complementary playmaking all fell off a cliff
Which player is Duren most likely to be over the next few years: the one who averaged an efficient 19-and-10 while leading a top-five defense en route to All-Star and All-NBA honors? Or the one who largely looked lost against Orlando and Cleveland, his quiet play leading to loud grumbling in the Motor City as he lost crunch-time minutes to Paul Reed?
That Duren earned those All-NBA honors only further complicates things. The All-NBA selection makes him eligible for an extension with the Pistons that would pay him up to 30% of the salary cap in its first season, with 8% year-over-year raises from there — a contract that would be projected to pay the center $287 million over five years. The most lucrative offer another team could offer would be four years and $185 million
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That’s an awfully large gap between what Duren and his representatives can argue he’s earned — even if nobody ever realistically expected Detroit to go all the way to the top possible dollar — and what he could conceivably get elsewhere. In theory, that leaves a lot of room for negotiation. In practice, with virtually all of the available cap space around the league gone in other transactions, and with the Pistons holding the right to match any offer sheet Duren might sign, Detroit’s brass doesn’t feel like it really needs to negotiate very much at all.
Those early-free-agency reports of meetings with the Lakers and Kings came to naught, with L.A. promptly working out a sign-and-trade to make Walker Kessler their center of the future and Sacramento … well, I guess waiving DeMar DeRozan and re-signing Precious Achiuwa doesn’t necessarily preclude the Kings from pivoting back to the center market, but it doesn’t exactly seem like an offer’s forthcoming. With the few teams that entered the summer with significant salary cap space having used it elsewhere, the Pistons control the tempo here — unless Duren gets serious about taking his $9.6 million qualifying offer for next season, which would allow him to hit unrestricted free agency next summer.
That approach can have very different outcomes. Just last year, we saw a pair of restricted free agents, Brooklyn Nets guard Cam Thomas and Philadelphia 76ers wing Quentin Grimes, sign their qualifying offers when they didn’t like the extensions being tendered by their respective teams. After a fine season in Philly’s backcourt rotation, Grimes signed a four-year, $60 million contract to join the Los Angeles Lakers — less than the $20 million to $30 million per year he reportedly wanted, but more than the one- or two-year deals the Sixers reportedly floated. Thomas, on the other hand, didn’t make out as well: After shooting 40% from the field in the early going and missing time to injury, he got waived after the Nets didn’t find a taker for him at the trade deadline. Just 18 games after catching on with the Bucks, Thomas got waivedagain; he now finds himself looking for his next opportunity.
Duren’s a significantly higher-end pro player than Thomas, of course; something drastic would likely have to happen for him to wind up out of the league in a year’s time. But the point stands: If you turn down long-term money because it’s not quite as much as you would like, you run the risk that you might not be able to make it up
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Getting a Duren deal done would seem to be the top priority for a Pistons team that — with apologies to John Collins, Taurean Prince, Isaiah Joe and Gary Harris — has yet to take a major swing this summer. The Pistons continue to project confidence that they’ll reach an agreement. But with only “modest” progress reportedly made in negotiations to this point, and in the absence of an offer sheet that would force their hand, Trajan Langdon and Co. appear to be content holding the line in negotiations, preferring to let things drag on through August — and even toward October if need be — if it means bringing back their gifted big man at the price they want … and to keep as much powder as possible dry in their next round of negotiations, with extension-eligible swingman Ausar Thompson.
Nick Richards
The six-year veteran found himself on the outskirts of Jordan Ott’s rotation in Phoenix, leapfrogged by Mark Williams and Oso Ighodaro and averaging just 9.1 minutes per game. After a midseason move to Chicago, though, the 28-year-old averaged 9.4 points and 7.6 rebounds in 22.4 minutes per game and scored in double figures 11 times in 20 games as a Bull after doing it just once in 28 games for the Suns last season. (He even made five 3-pointers in Chicago, after canning a grand total of one through his first 285 games as a professional.)
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The Kentucky product has never graded out particularly well in advanced metrics like value over replacement player, box plus-minus and estimated plus-minus, and has tended to alternate good and bad seasons protecting the rim. (Opponents shot 66.9% on up-close shots when he was the nearest defender last season; buy the dip!) But he is a 6-foot-11, 245-pound dude under age 30 who can screen, dive, catch, dunk and hit the glass — and, apparently, hit the occasional corner 3? — which could have value for teams in need of another big man to round out the rotation.
Kevin Love
You might be thinking, “Is Kevin Love, two months shy of his 38th birthday, having played a grand total of 864 minutes over the past two seasons, really one of the best remaining big men on the market?”
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I guess what I would say here is: It’s not, like, an awesome market at this stage. And when pushed to choose between highlighting some of the other options available or doffing my cap to a five-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection — and, in the process, feeling shocked that both of those numbers somehow aren’t higher??? — I opted for saluting a dude who still shot 37.3% from long range and grabbed 29% of available defensive rebounds in Utah last season
Nicolas Batum
The 18-year veteran might be ticketed for a return to his native France to play for ASVEL, a club that’s owned by longtime pal Tony Parker and for whom Batum formerly served as director of basketball operations. If he’s willing to hold off on a trip back across the pond for one more year, though, the 37-year-old — who played 74 games for the Clippers, and who has shot 39% or better from 3-point range in six straight seasons — would be worth a look for a team in need of experience, defensive savvy and floor spacing in the frontcourt.
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Also on the market:Jeremy Sochan; Drew Eubanks; the San Antonio Spurs’ veteran trio of Kelly Olynyk, Bismack Biyombo and Mason Plumlee; longtime Mavericks power forward/center Dwight Powell; Trendon Watford; Tony Bradley; Xavier Tillman
BALL-HANDLERS
JamesHarden
Harden’s essentially here as a technicality. He declined his $42.3 million player option for next season in what was widely viewed as a precursor to a multi-year deal at a lower average annual value — a move most projected when he landed in Cleveland back in February, and that was largely connected to the Cavaliers’ pursuit of yet another reunion with LeBron
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The Cavs didn’t land one James, but they can still bring back another. Harden remains at the head of the class of (technically) available facilitators, averaging 20.5 points on 47/44/84 shooting splits to go with 7.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds in 33.8 minutes per game after joining the Cavs. His performance fluctuated in the postseason, as is his wont — and as was the case for a number of his Cleveland teammates — but he did team with Donovan Mitchell to get the franchise to its first Eastern Conference finals in eight years, with the Cavs outscoring opponents by 2.4 points per 100 possessions in his regular- and postseason minutes.
DeMar DeRozan
DeRozan became a late addition to the market when the Sacramento Kings chose to waive him after their efforts to find a trade partner for his services proved unsuccessful. The 17-year vet was evidently a tough sell at the $25.7 million he was set to make in the final season of the three-year, $73.7 million contract he inked with the Kings in 2024 (even with just $10 million of that 2026-27 figure guaranteed)
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Even so: a player who averaged more than 18 points and four assists per game on 50% shooting could still provide plenty of bang for the proverbial buck on a substantially smaller deal with a team in need of a dose of shot creation and shot-making. That’s particularly true in crunch time, where DeRozan — a perennially elite midrange operator with pristine footwork and the cunning to wrongfoot defenders into ill-timed reaches, bites on pump-fakes and fouls — scored 86 points in 101 “clutch” minutes on .651 true shooting with a 15-to-3 assist-to-turnover ratio last season for the Kings.
I have been operating under the assumption that he would wind up signing with the Heat — and, in fact, had apparently hallucinated himalreadysigning with the Heat — so let’s all brace for him landing anywhere but Miami. (Like, for example, Washington?)
Russell Westbrook
Like DeRozan, the former NBA Most Valuable Player spent last season grinding it out in Sacramento, starting and logging major minutes for a circling-the-drain Kings team. Like DeRozan, Westbrook’s still capable of being a productive offensive player when given the opportunity, averaging more than 15 points, six assists and five rebounds per game last season, albeit on declining 2-point efficiency
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And, like DeRozan, he’s still got enough juice left to be able to tilt a game when he’s feeling it. Only four players in the NBA (Nikola Jokić, Josh Giddey, Jalen Johnson and Luka Dončić) posted more triple-doubles last season than the 37-year-old Westbrook
The Washington Wizards reportedly have at least some interest in bringing him back as a backup to the extended Trae Young. Prior to the resolution of the LeBron saga, Stefan Bondy of the New York Post also pegged the Miami Heat as a “team to watch” for Russ
Bradley Beal
The 14-year veteran was something of a surprise addition to the open market, after he declined the $5.6 million player option he held for the 2025-26 season. Beal had inked a two-year, $11 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers last summer after agreeing to terms with the Phoenix Suns on a buyout of the final two years of the $251 million extension he’d signed with the Washington Wizards in the summer of 2022. The three-time All-Star logged just 121 minutes in L.A., though, before suffering a fractured hip that required season-ending surgery.
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The hope, when Beal joined the Clippers, was that he’d be able to rehabilitate his image by replicating his Phoenix production — 17 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.1 steals in 32.1 minutes per game on 50/39/80 shooting splits — at a significantly lower price point on a Clippers team intent on contending for a title. The hope now, after surgical repair and many months of rehabilitation, is that Beal can once again approximate the sort of smooth three-level scoring that had made him such an enticing prospective addition in both Phoenix and L.A, that his play and production might perk up in a lower-usage role, and that he’ll be able to hold up defensively with a surgically repaired hip.
Which team is willing to harbor all those hopes, though, remains to be seen. The Heat and Celtics have expressed interest in Beal who also reports that there’s at least some possibility of a return to the Clippers
Aaron Holiday
A first-round draft pick of the Pacers in 2018, Holiday has bounced around a bit, with stints in Washington, Phoenix and Atlanta before catching on as a reliable rotation option in Houston for the last three seasons. The 29-year-old can pressure ball-handlers the length of the court and pester them at the point of attack for 10 to 15 per game off the bench — an increasingly valuable skill in today’s NBA
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He can contribute a little on the other end, too. Among point guards who played at least 600 minutes last season, only seven shot better than 65% at the rim and 37% from 3-point range; Holiday was one of them. (The other six: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Dončić, Stephen Curry, Payton Pritchard, Immanuel Quickley and late-season Wizards call-up Sharife Cooper.)
Also on the market:Cole Anthony, Brandon Williams, Gabe Vincent,Cam Thomas, Jalen Pickett, Nick Smith Jr
WINGS
Peyton Watson
The 23-year-old forward made a significant offensive leap in his fourth season, averaging 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and two steals-plus-blocks in 29.6 minutes per game on 49/41/73 shooting splits. Watson ran more pick-and-rolls and shot more efficiently in a larger offensive role, while maintaining strong rebounding and block rates for his position — a profile that marks the 6-foot-8, 200-pound swingman as precisely the kind of potential 3-and-D (and maybe more) wing that every team covets.
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That naturally includes his current employer, the Denver Nuggets, who initially signaled to interested suitors that they intend to match any offer sheet tendered for the UCLA product in restricted free agency, and have since offered Watson a five-year, $70 million deal, according to Tony Jones of The Athletic. But after crossing the second apron by matching Oklahoma City’s offer sheet for Spencer Jones, and with a massive luxury tax bill looming, the Nuggets have reportedly also signaled an interest in entertaining sign-and-trade talks.
The Clippers, Hawks and Bucks are all “on the list of teams trying to pry Watson away from the Nuggets” in such a deal owners of a $25.5 million traded player exception, are currently considered the “most likely external suitor” to swoop in on Watson
Watson, like Duren, also has the option of signing his qualifying offer — worth $6.5 million for next season — to get into the unrestricted market next summer. It’s one he’s considering, according to Stein; the aforementioned risks still apply
Jonathan Kuminga
After all the drama of his restricted free agency last summer, Kuminga wound up signing a priced-to-move deal with Golden State and then was, indeed, moved to Atlanta at the trade deadline. The 6-foot-7 swingman offered some pop off the bench for Quin Snyder, averaging 12.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 22.1 minutes per game for a Hawks team that finished with the East’s No. 6 seed
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Kuminga became something of a bellwether in Atlanta’s opening-round playoff series against the eventual NBA champion New York Knicks. When he played well, the Hawks tended to look really good …
… and when he didn’t, they didn’t:
Kuminga went 10-for-27 from the field and 2-for-14 from 3-point range over the final three games of that series — all Knicks wins
After the season, the Hawks declined their $24.3 million team option on Kuminga’s contract for the 2026-27 season in favor of having more financial flexibility, though they reportedly remained open to bringing him back at a friendlier number. Jake Fischer reported that the Hawks are also open to finding Kuminga a new homeed in the 23-year-old forward’s services
Bennedict Mathurin
Need somebody who can get to the cup and get himself to the foul line? Mathurin’s your man: Among 199 players who have logged at least 5,000 total minutes over the past four seasons, the 24-year-old restricted free agent ranks 13th in free-throw attempt rate. Among guards and wings, he ranks fifth, behind only Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Harden, Deni Avdija and Young
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On the nights when Mathurin’s converting up-close, getting to the line and knocking down his jumpers, he looks like the kind of one-on-one shot-creating scorer that a team can build its offense around. The issue is how frequently those nights come — Mathurin’s been a below-average shooter at the basket, from midrange and from 3-point land throughout his career — which, combined with a negative career assist-to-turnover ratio and trick-or-treat defensive attentiveness, have led to the Montreal native grading out poorly by a number of advanced metrics.
That eye-test vs. statistical résumé collision makes the question of what sort of role best suits Mathurin, and what to pay him to perform it, pretty thorny. The Pacers punted on it, sending him to the Clippers in the deal that brought Ivica Zubac to Indiana
The Clips, for their part, reportedly want to re-sign him as part of their ongoing youth movement, though it’s unclear for how much and for how long. They might have some competition, too: The Pelicans and Bulls are both reportedly considering taking a run at the Canadian swingman
Bruce Brown Jr
After a quiet couple of seasons in his post-2023 NBA title sojourn through Indiana, Toronto and New Orleans, Brown returned to Denver last season and acquitted himself pretty well, averaging 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and a steal in 24.4 minutes per game, shooting 47.5% from the floor and 38.5% from 3-point range. He’s not quite a point guard, not quite a shooting guard and not exactly a wing. In the right situation and for the right price, though, he’s helpful — a tough, seasoned vet who can do a little bit of everything, all while wearing the hell out of a cowboy hat.
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Also on the market:Dillon Jones, Ochai Agbaji, Blake Wesley, Jett Howard, Bryce McGowens, Jae’Sean Tate, Gary Payton II (who’s kind of a wing and a guard and a big all at once, isn’t he?)
