Nets offseason team salary

The purple are holds that count against the cap.

Cap space increases if the player is renounced, signs with another team or signs at lower number in Brooklyn.

Ex: Brooklyn gets $10M in additional room if Ziaire Williams year 1 salary is $8M. pic.twitter.com/BpyYrkmcsn

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) June 2, 2025

The Brooklyn Nets will have plenty of free-agents to worry about this summer as they head into the offseason with 12 players that could be playing for another team next season. As Brooklyn moves forward with the goal of improving the team while maximizing their cap space, it will be interesting how they approach their restricted free-agents like forward Ziaire Williams.

“Ziaire Williams had moments, but he’s not likely to get tendered a qualifying offer,” Spotrac’s Keith Smith wrote in his preview of the Nets‘ offseason. Williams will be a restricted free-agent this summer after coming to Brooklyn last offseason in a trade from the Memphis Grizzlies, the team that selected him with the 10th overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.

“If Brooklyn wants to maximize cap space, Williams is likely to have his free agent rights renounced. He could return, but it won’t be on any kind of sizable deal for Brooklyn,” Smith continued. Williams, 23, is coming off the best season of his four-year career as he averaged 10.0 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.0 steals per game while shooting 41.2% from the field and 34.1% from three-point land.

At this point, the main issue regarding Williams and the Nets is what the former Stanford Cardinal will demand in restricted free-agency and whether Brooklyn will pay what it takes to bring him back. ESPN’s Bobby Marks, who has a video detailing Brooklyn’s entire offseason as well, posted a visual representation of the Nets’ cap sheet on X and he explained that Brooklyn could maintain and/or create cap space by operating on the margins.

For example, Williams’ cap hold is $18.3 million and his qualifying offer, which would make him a restricted free-agent if Brooklyn extends it to him, is $8.35 million. Assuming that the Nets, or another team, sign Williams to a contract where he makes less than $18.3 million, the difference between the two figures is absorbed by Brooklyn, meaning that the Nets will benefit by either letting Williams walk entirely or by re-signing him to a cheaper deal.

As of this writing, there hasn’t been much reporting on how much Williams is expected to command in restricted free-agency so this could be a scenario where he goes back to the Nets to improve his value for the following offseason. However, Williams did show significant improvement in his three-point shooting and is still one of the more disruptive perimeter defenders in the league that many teams could use next season.