Nets re-sign Trendon Watford to qualifying offer; will be UFA in 2025

The Brooklyn Nets announced on Tuesday that they have re-signed Trendon Watford to his qualifying offer of $2.7 million.

The Brooklyn Nets have pretty much made their splashes this summer by trading Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks and re-signing center Nic Claxton to a huge payday. Bringing Claxton back was the main task for Brooklyn and now, the Nets have figured out a way to bring back another player with some potential.

The Nets announced on Tuesday that they have re-signed forward Trendon Watford. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski wrote on X that Watford signed his qualifying offer, meaning that he will be coming back to Brooklyn on a one-year deal and is set to become an unrestricted free-agent in the summer of 2025.

On June 29, Brian Lewis of the New York Post reported that the Nets had extended a qualifying offer to Watford, which according to Spotrac and confirmed by ESPN’s Bobby Marks is worth $2.7 million. The deadline for Brooklyn to extend a qualifying offer to Watford was June 29 and a little over a week later, Watford has accepted those terms to come back for one more season.

With Watford being a restricted free-agent once Brooklyn extended the qualifying offer to him, other teams could have presented an offer sheet to him which the Nets then would have the option to match the offer sheet or lose him to that team. Based off Watford accepting the qualifying offer, it seems that there may not have been any offers out there now with free-agency slowing down.

Watford, 23, is coming off a 2023-24 season in which he didn’t have a secure role in the rotation in the beginning, but made quite the impression towards the end of the season. Watford averaged 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game while shooting 52.7% from the field and 39.7% from three-point range, but also averaged 12.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per contest on 48.4/38.5/64.3 shooting splits in April.

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