According to Rod Boone of Sports Illustrated, the Charlotte Hornets have extended a qualifying offer of $4.74M to guard Devonte Graham. They chose not to extend guard Malik Monk, who is on the way to becoming an unrestricted free agent.
With this decision, the Hornets created the needed amount of cap room to accommodate recently acquired center Mason Plumlee, who came from the Detroit Pistons in a draft night trade. Plumlee has two years remaining on a 3-year, $24M contract. The Hornets also acquired the draft rights to power forward JT Thor on draft night.
If Charlotte would have offered Monk the qualifying offer, they would not have had the salary cap space to trade for Plumlee and Thor. They also would not have been able to offer contracts to any available free agents that they had their eye on besides Monk and Graham. It is the unfortunate part of the business, especially considering the improvement of Monk over the last two seasons. It was the only alternative the Hornets had to improve their roster now and in the long run.
The good news for Monk is that he may have several suitors such as the Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors. Even though things did not work out with the Hornets, Monk has the capabilities and the talent to go elsewhere in the NBA and have a productive career.
Boone stated that Graham will most likely remain a Hornet. The Athletic’s John Hollinger’s BORD$ valued Graham at a $19M per-year player, but that probably will not happen with the Hornets. Anything between $10M and $15M AAV (Average Annual Value) would benefit both parties.
