Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- Five NBA players face critical decisions on their 2026-27 player options as the 2025-26 season concludes. Take the guaranteed money, or hit free agency?
- Zach LaVine is coming off a career-worst season and stands to earn nearly $50 million by taking his guaranteed deal.
- Two others — one a prime-aged star and one a high-impact bench contributor — face starkly different financial incentives.
The NBA is an uber complicated system understand. Not only because of all the innovative tactics that only the most careful observers can recognize take place on the floor, but because of all the different salary mechanisms that exist under the current CBA.
One of those features is the player option. According to one of my colleagues, a player option is "one of the most valuable contractual concessions a player can land. It provides players the option to continue their contract at a known salary, or end their current contract and explore free agency."
With the 2025-26 season starting to wind down, many eyes will begin to turn toward the 2026 offseason. One of the storylines that will be monitored during this time is who exercises their player option, and who declines it. (Exercising the option means staying under the terms of his current contract for the final season. Not exercising it means hitting the market as an unrestricted free agent).
To prepare for this, here are three guys who definitely need to pick up their player option, and two guys who probably should not.
Zach LaVine: Exercise player option
What if I told you someone who missed over half his team's games, posted his worst scoring season in a decade, and played for one of the worst teams in the association had a chance to make $49 million next season. As bizarre as this sounds, this is Zach LaVine's reality. Given that he's now on the wrong side of the 30 (he turned 31 in March), there is no reason that LaVine does not exercise his player option.
Austin Reaves: Do NOT exercise player option
Austin Reaves averaged four more points per game, appeared in 12 more regular season games, and helped his Los Angeles Lakers to 31 more wins than LaVine did with the Sacramento Kings. Yet, his player option is worth less than a third of what LaVine is set to be played by the Kings ($14.9 million). Reaves was one of the most underpaid players in the association this year. He will be 28 to start next year, entering the prime years of his career, Reaves needs to make sure he's being paid like the star that he is.
Trae Young: Exercise player option
Few players had to deal with the hit to their ego that Trae Young endured this season. The team for which he was the franchise icon of for the last eight years told him they don't need him anymore, and then the league indirectly said that his playstyle and diminutive frame are causing him to lose all his value; as evidenced by the Atlanta Hawks trading him for pennies on the dollar.
Instead of sulking over how the direction of his career is trending, Young should take solace in the fact that he's got a new home (with the Washington Wizards), and has a $49 million player option waiting for him this summer. Not that bad when you really think about it.
Sandro Mamukelashvili: Do NOT exercise player option
Sandro Mamukelashvili was one of the best veteran minimum signings of the 2025 offseason. Mamukelashvili was one of the best bench players in the league this past season. The only bench players to post a higher Estimated Plus-Minus (minimum 30 games played) than him were Paul Reed and Ajay Mitchell. Somehow, the Toronto Raptors were able to sign him to a two-year minimum contract. Fortunately, the second year had a player option that Mamukelashvili (worth just $2.8 million) absolutely should not exercise.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: Exercise player option
After spending a decade as one of the most underrated role players in the association, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope has shown his age these past two seasons (with the Orlando Magic and Memphis Grizzlies). This past year, Caldwell-Pope was relegated to just 51 games (mainly because the Grizzlies were tanking), and by far and away the wrost EPM of his respectable 13-year career. His player option isn't as lucrative as LaVine and Young's ($21.6 million), but he should demonstrate just as little hesitation when choosing to exercise it.
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