How players who declined options fared in free agency

A solid win:

• Chris Paul
  • Option: $44,211,146 (Suns)
  • New contract: Four years, $120,000,000 (Suns)
    • Note: Deal includes $75M in guaranteed money. Third year is partially guaranteed; fourth year is non-guaranteed.

If you want to move Paul to the “biggest wins” group, I wouldn’t argue with that. After all, he increased his overall guarantee by more than $30M, which is no small feat for a player hitting free agency at age 36.

I’m separating him into his own group because his 2021-22 salary was reduced by more than $13M as part of his new deal, and I think it’s possible he could’ve gotten more than $30M in guaranteed money on his next deal if he had simply picked up his option and hit free agency next year.

I certainly don’t blame him for going this route, though, given his injury history. And if he continues to play at a high level, the Suns will probably want to keep him for the third year of the deal, which would increase his overall guarantee on this contract to $90M.

Minor wins:

• Will Barton
  • Option: $14,669,642 (Nuggets)
  • New contract: Two years, $30,000,000 (Nuggets)
    • Note: Deal includes $2M in incentives.
• JaMychal Green
  • Option: $7,559,748 (Nuggets)
  • New contract: Two years, $16,400,000 (Nuggets)
    • Note: Deal includes $400K in incentives.
• Bobby Portis
  • Option: $3,804,150 (Bucks)
  • New contract: Two years, $8,912,580 (Bucks)
• Bryn Forbes
  • Option: $2,454,002 (Bucks)
  • New contract: One year, $4,500,000 (Spurs)

The Nuggets took a similar approach to their negotiations with Barton and Green — Denver gave each player a small raise this year, plus a second guaranteed season (Green’s second year is a player option).

The Bucks went that route with Portis, too, giving him the biggest raise they could offer using his Non-Bird rights and including a second-year player option on his new deal.

You could make a case that Forbes is a big winner for nearly doubling his 2021-22 salary, but without any future years tacked onto that deal (and given the relatively small salaries involved), I’m classifying it as a modest victory.

The jury’s still out:

• Isaiah Hartenstein
  • Option: $1,762,796 (Cavaliers)
  • New contract: TBD

Hartenstein is the only one of these nine players who remains unsigned. Based on his solid play with the Cavs down the stretch, turning down his minimum-salary player option seemed like a reasonable bet at the time, but it now looks like he might’ve been better off taking the guaranteed money.

While he’ll probably be signed at some point in the coming weeks, Hartenstein isn’t a lock for a fully guaranteed deal. And even if he gets a guaranteed one-year, minimum-salary contract, it’ll be worth slightly less ($1,729,217) than the option he declined, due to the league’s minimum-salary rules.