Celtics won't make qualifying offer to Brad Wanamaker

The Celtics won’t be making a qualifying offer to guard Brad Wanamaker, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. The decision will ensure that Wanamaker becomes an unrestricted free agent on Friday, rather than an RFA.

The decision is a little surprising, as Wanamaker’s qualifying offer would have been worth only about $1.82M. And he was a fairly reliable bench contributor in Boston in 2019-20, averaging 6.9 points and 2.5 assists on .448/.363/.926 shooting in 71 games (19.3 minutes). However, with Aaron Nesmith and Payton Pritchard entering the mix, the Celtics don’t have a ton of roster spots to go around.

There’s still a chance that Wanamaker could return to the Celtics, particularly if Gordon Hayward ends up elsewhere, per Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe.

Here are several more updates on qualifying offer decisions from around the NBA:

• The Timberwolves, as expected, tendered a qualifying offer to power forward Juan Hernangomez, making him a restricted free agent, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. That QO is worth about $4.6M. Hernangomez could accept it, but is more likely to try to negotiate a new, longer-term deal with Minnesota.
• The Celtics extended qualifying offers to both of their two-way players, Tacko Fall and Tremont Waters, the team announced in a press release. Those QOs are for new two-way deals with $50K guarantees.
• The Pacers won’t extend qualifying offers to big man Alize Johnson or two-way players Brian Bowen and Naz Mitrou-Long, per Scotto. All three players will become unrestricted free agents.
• Among other two-way players, Nets guard Chris Chiozza will receive a qualifying offer, but Pelicans guard Josh Gray won’t, according to Scotto (Twitter links). The Heat also won’t send a QO to two-way player Kyle Alexander, per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.