CJ McCollum recently guested on Adrian Wojnarowski's The Woj Pod and the Portland Trail Blazers shooting guard brought up a very interesting point about one particular signing made by the Los Angeles Lakers. McCollum was clearly unhappy with how things went down, and he wasn't afraid to speak his mind about it.
McCollum is taking issue with how the Miami Heat handled the Kendrick Nunn situation. Miami pulled their qualifying offer for Nunn at the last minute, which eventually led to the 26-year-old signing as a free agent for the Lakers:
“The Kendrick Nunn situation,” McCollum said, via Brad Sullivan of Heat Nation. “He was gonna be a free agent. They basically waited until the money dried up, right? You correct me if I’m wrong. Have you (Wojnarowski) seen this happening in the league and not being discussed at all? Where they talk about players forcing their way out, player movement. But then what about the manipulation that goes into some of these situations where teams are waiting for the market to dry up before they release a player’s rights.”
Fair point from McCollum here. Nunn ended up signing a two-year deal with the Lakers worth $10.3 million, which is no small amount. However, what McCollum is pointing out here is that Nunn could have earned himself a bigger payday had it not been for the Heat dilly-dallying on his contract situation.
In the end, it seems like Nunn is more than happy with where he's landed. As a matter of fact, he may have had the Lakers as his first choice anyway. Nevertheless, it doesn't take away from what McCollum is pointing out here about how teams — like the Miami Heat in this particular instance — tend to take advantage of these types of situations. For the most part, it doesn't always end as well as it did for Nunn.
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