Brooklyn Nets rumors: No qualifying offer for Nik Stauskas

The newest Brooklyn Nets rumors center on Nik Stauskas. The Nets reportedly won’t tender a qualifying offer, making Stauskas an unrestricted free agent come Sunday.

According to a report, the Brooklyn Nets will not tender a qualifying offer to guard Nik Stauskas, which will make the four-year veteran and former lottery pick an unrestricted free agent when the new league year begins Sunday.

Nicknamed Sauce Castillo thanks to a closed-captioning gaffe while he was a rookie with the Sacramento Kings, Stauskas briefly appeared to be a viable option as a shooting wing for the Nets after he was acquired along with center Jahlil Okafor from the Philadelphia 76ers last December.

Michael Scotto of The Athletic had the initial report on Friday:

The Brooklyn Nets will not tender Nik Stauskas a qualifying offer, sources told @TheAthleticNYC. He'll be an unrestricted free agent. The Nets did tender two-way player Milton Doyle a qualifying offer making him a restricted free agent. He'll play in Summer League with Brooklyn.
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) June 29, 2018

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Stauskas scored 22 points in his Brooklyn debut on Dec. 15, hitting 6-of-9 overall and going 5-for-7 from 3-point range while adding seven rebounds and two assists in 28 minutes at Toronto.

But the same inconsistency that has plagued Stauskas throughout his career reared its head just as quickly. The eighth overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft misfired on all five of his shot attempts two nights later in his home debut against the Indiana Pacers.

Stauskas would manage double-figures just seven times in 35 games as a Net, averaging 5.1 points in 13.7 minutes per game on .393/.404/.704 shooting with Brooklyn.

That’s basically the story of his four years in the NBA with the Kings, 76ers and Nets. He’s played in 267 games and was given 62 starts by the 76ers and has averaged 7.0 points and 2.1 rebounds in 21.1 minutes per game while shooting .386/.359/.801.

On June 18, we explored Stauskas’ potential future with the Nets and concluded it was an uncertain outlook for the 6-foot-6 Canadian, who will be 25 on Oct. 7.

The arrival of J.J. Redick in Philadelphia spelled doom for Stauskas, whose playing time almost completely evaporated last season — he appeared in six games for a total of 45 minutes before the trade to Brooklyn — and with the Nets, there were always more viable and reliable options.

Fellow unrestricted free agent Joe Harris, for example, put up a .491/.419/.827 slash line last season, while Allen Crabbe was at .407/.378/.852 while making 68 starts in his first season after signing with Brooklyn as a restricted free agent.

Stauskas was a lottery pick and the NBA can be notoriously slow to give up on those players, so he’ll likely still get a look somewhere come training camp. But now at the end of his rookie deal (and the guaranteed money that comes with it), the road ahead will get rockier.

Meanwhile, Keith Smith of RealGM reported Thursday that the Nets did tender a qualifying offer to restricted free agent guard Milton Doyle, who signed a two-way deal with Brooklyn in January.

The Brooklyn Nets have tendered a qualifying offer to two-way player Milton Doyle. He's now a restricted free agent. The Nets can match any offer sheet Doyle signs with another team. If he signs the QO, he'll return on a second two-way contract.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) June 29, 2018

Scotto’s report on Friday confirmed the Doyle qualifying offer and also said he will be playing for the Nets in the Las Vegas Summer League.

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No qualifying offer decision on forward James Webb, the Nets’ remaining restricted free agent, has been reported as yet. The deadline for tendering a QO is Saturday.

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