How Edmond Sumner’s new contract affects 2019 free agency

Edmond Sumner recently signed a new deal with the Indiana Pacers. Here’s how it could affect the team in the upcoming free agency period.

Edmond Sumner spent much of his first two seasons with the Indiana Pacers on a two-way contract. He was injured when he was drafted, and the only deal he could have realistically gotten was a two-way when he entered the league.

Zoom forward to a few weeks ago, and the Pacers had injuries to both of their shooting guards on the roster — Victor Oladipo and Tyreke Evans. Sumner, who had been dominating in the G League, was thrown in as a starter. He didn’t do great, but he showed flashes of being a decent NBA player. That performance, melded with a couple others, earned Sumner a two-year NBA contract.

At the time the Pacers signed Sumner, they had 0 cap space or salary cap exceptions (they used their only exception to sign Kyle O’Quinn). This means that they signed Sumner to a minimum contract. Teams can sign players to a minimum contract even if they are over the salary cap and have used their exceptions, and since the Pacers had no other way of inking him to an NBA deal, we can say for certain that Sumner’s deal is for the minimum.

Minimum deals are prorated depending on what day in the season they are signed on. Sumner will make $449,794 on his NBA deal this season by signing on February 11.

On its own, the minimum deal for the rest of this season is fantastic. Sumner has shown potential and you want to both reward and keep guys like that.

But there’s more to this contract. Sumner’s deal is a two-year deal, with a team option on the second season, per Shams Charania of the Athletic:

The second-year is the 2019-20 season, and in theory, Sumner’s deal could have implications on free agency this summer, albeit very minor ones.

I stressed that Sumner’s contract is a minimum deal because that allows us to see the value of his contract for next season. The second year also has to be on the minimum, which for Sumner next season would be $1,588,231. The Pacers have until June 29th to decide if they want to keep Sumner at that $1.5 million figure next season.

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That date is before free agency officially begins, which leaves the Indiana Pacers front office with a somewhat binary decision: what is more valuable to them between Edmond Sumner and $1.5 mil of cap space with a roster spot.

In my far-from-expert opinion, the answer should be Edmond Sumner. He has shown a lot of promise and could be a fringe rotation player for the Pacers next year. But in a summer where there’s going to be a lot of spending, every dollar counts. Especially for Indiana, where players cost more to acquire.

Another factor looming here is that the Pacers could make Sumner a restricted free agent both this summer AND next summer (but not both). If they decline his team option and then offer him a qualifying offer, they could send him to restricted free agency this summer and match any offer another (non-Pacer) team made for him.

But, spoiler, that would be stupid. The only reason to theoretically do this would be to dissuade other teams from making Sumner an offer (because the Pacers could match) and then offer him a long-term low-ball offer yourself, but that is acting in poor faith and is a poor way to maximize Sumner’s restricted free agency from a team perspective.

Plus, Sumner could just take the QO (a one-year minimum deal), which would make him just as expensive, but then he could depart from Indiana the following summer, something you could prevent by pushing his restricted free agency back a year. Since the front office can offer Edmond Sumner the qualifying offer in the summer of 2020 as well, that would be the ideal time to send him into restricted free agency if they are so inclined.

Because it makes little sense to send the young guard into RFA early, one has to think that the decision falls back to the binary question of what has more value – Sumner or a tiny amount of cap room. I think it’s a very easy choice, but salary cap decisions are often more complex than they seem on the surface.

Edmond Sumner’s new contract adds another layer to free agency this summer, albeit a very small one. As a promising player on a cheap deal, he probably doesn’t leave the Indiana Pacers this offseason. But you never know.