It’s been over two months since the Milwaukee Bucks extended a qualifying offer to restricted free agent Jordan Nwora, why hasn’t Nwora accepted or declined yet? There are several advantages for Nwora and the Milwaukee Bucks regardless of which way Nwora chooses to go with his career.
What could the delay possibly mean for the Milwaukee Bucks and Jordan Nwora?
The qualifying offer extended to Jordan Nwora technically expires on October 1st, just over two weeks from now. However, the Milwaukee Bucks can begin training camp on September 24th, just over a week away. The Milwaukee Bucks are allowed to start training camp two days earlier than most other teams in the league because of their participation in the Abu Dhabi games on October 6th and 8th against the Atlanta Hawks.
Where this situation gets really confusing is that Jordan Nwora has spent essentially the entire off-season with his Milwaukee Bucks teammates, attending summer league games with other Bucks players. Currently if Nwora doesn’t sign his qualifying offer, he will remain a restricted free agent, allowing the Milwaukee Bucks to match any offer sheet that Nwora receives. If Nwora wants to participate in the Abu Dhabi games he may want to make that decision sooner than later.
Should the Milwaukee Bucks be insistent that Nwora sign his qualifying offer?
What’s surprising on the Milwaukee Bucks side of things is that they haven’t been more insistent that Jordan Nwora accept the qualifying offer that would pay him just over $2 million. Why that would be beneficial to the Milwaukee Bucks isn’t super hard to understand given how active the Milwaukee Bucks have been in the trade market.
Having Jordan Nwora on the roster and on the payroll could be useful for multiple reasons, for instance, if the Milwaukee Bucks wanted to say make a deal with the San Antonio Spurs for Doug McDermott or Jakob Poeltl, having Nwora as a player to add to the deal to make salaries work could be helpful. On the reverse, if Milwaukee wanted to keep Nwora as depth at the shooting guard and small forward positions if they were to make a trade that involved possibly trading Grayson Allen (and less than ideally including MarJon Beauchamp) to the Utah Jazz in a package for Jordan Clarkson, that would be another reason to want Nwora to accept the qualifying offer and return to the team.
Regardless of whether the Bucks want Nwora on the roster for the 2022-23 season or not, it is certainly confusing why they haven’t been more insistent on having Nwora opt in or out.
What is Jordan Nwora waiting for?
As previously stated, it is quite confusing why over two months have passed and there is still no news on whether or not Jordan Nwora will be wearing a Bucks jersey in 2022-23. What is possible from the viewpoint of the Jordan Nwora side of things is that while a qualifying offer has been extended to Nwora, a contract extension can also be discussed. So there is a possibility that Nwora’s agent is working with Jon Horst on trying to get a contract extension to keep Nwora with the Milwaukee Bucks, or at least in the NBA, for longer than just the upcoming season.
The other potential advantage for Nwora is that if he were to decline the offer, he would have the opportunity to seek offers from other teams that may be willing to give him a deal extending beyond this season, the more time that passes, the more teams are moving forward with what they have.
We would certainly expect an update on the Jordan Nwora situation before the Milwaukee Bucks begin preparation for training camp in the next eight days. Stay tuned with Behind the Buck Pass for reactions to news when it comes.