The Best Young Players Remaining in NBA Free Agency

Las Vegas Summer League is underway, and clubs are at a point where they’re determining who makes the most sense to bring to training camp once that begins in late September.

But with that in mind, a handful of talented, relatively young free agents remain on the market. Here are five of the best ones, who are all 27 years old or younger.

Trendon Watford

Surprisingly, the 22-year-old combo forward was waived by Portland the day free agency began despite putting up solid numbers—7.4 points per game, 3.8 boards and 2.1 assists in 19 minutes a night—as a second-year pro who entered the NBA as an undrafted prospect. The sample size isn’t abundant, but he knocked down 39.1% of his 64 three-point attempts, and in his career he has shot better than 72% from inside of three feet, per Basketball-Reference.

Kelly Oubre Jr.

Playing for a Charlotte team that went without LaMelo Ball, Terry Rozier and wing Gordon Hayward—and Miles Bridges, who missed the entire season after pleading no contest to domestic violence charges—the 27-year-old Oubre took matters into his own hands, taking a career-high 17.1 shots per game. As such, he averaged 20 points for the first time. The downside: He was inefficient in shooting that many times, ranking 49th in effective field goal percentage out of the 56 players who launched at least 15 shots each night. He also finished with more turnovers than assists for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign.

Ayo Dosunmu

The 23-year-old, a Chicago native, was a nearly perfect fit for the Bulls during his rookie season, in which he made the All-Rookie Second Team. Between DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine and Alex Caruso, Chicago has considerable ballhandling and is generally in need of more shooting and secondary playmaking. That explains much of how Dosunmu’s second season was less impressive than his first: He struggled to connect from deep, falling from 37.6% from outside as a rookie to just 31.2% this past season. He still carries value—especially on defense—and it’d be wise for Chicago to bring back the restricted free agent, whose role as a ballhandler will increase if and when the club opts to move on from either LaVine or DeRozan.

P.J. Washington

There was so much talk, for years, about John Collins. Whether he should be traded, where he should be traded, what his ceiling is and whether he was ultimately being misused in Atlanta’s offense. Washington, a 24-year-old restricted free agent with Charlotte who averaged 15.7 points and 4.9 rebounds, is an inch or two shorter, but carries some of the same traits. He’s a floor-spacing power forward who launches more than six triples per 36 minutes and has knocked down 36.6% of them over his four-year career. He displayed far more strength in finishing plays around the bucket, logging 23 and-one plays this past season as opposed to just seven the year before that.

Christian Wood

Wood is a perfect example of a player a casual fan would be befuddled by. Why hasn’t anyone signed him yet? He’s a big-time scorer—averaging 16.6 points in just 26 minutes—and at 6-10, he gives his offenses versatility because of his perimeter shooting prowess. He knocked down 37.6% of his triples last season, 39% in 2021-22, 37.4% in 2020-21 and 38.6% in 2019-20.

So what’s the catch? It’s relatively simple: Analysts and teams alike wonder whether the 27-year-old can contribute to winning basketball because of his shortcomings on defense. Even with the electric pick-and-roll combination of Wood with Luka Doncic, the Mavs looked at the pairing and opted to move on from Wood, surmising it wasn’t tenable for Dallas defensively.