Five NBA Free Agents Are Still Waiting — and One Cheap Signing Could Swing a Rotation
GOATIFYNBA training camps are close enough that most front offices have shifted from headline hunting to the less glamorous work of building a functional 15-man team. That does not mean the market is empty. It means the remaining bargains are no longer supposed to be stars. They are supposed to solve a problem, survive a matchup, create a little spacing or give a coach one more option when the first rotation plan breaks.
Five unsigned players stand out for exactly that reason: Ochai Agbaji, Bruce Brown Jr., Lindy Waters III, Cam Whitmore and Vince Williams Jr. None should require a major financial commitment. Several could realistically be available on minimum or even non-guaranteed arrangements. The interesting question is not whether one of them can transform a franchise. It is whether a contender, playoff hopeful or rebuilding team can buy one useful NBA skill for almost nothing.
That is where late-summer free agency becomes fascinating. The best cheap signings are usually not the names with the biggest résumés. They are players whose strengths fit a narrow need clearly enough that a coach can hide the weaknesses. In a league where one wing defender, one movement shooter or one bench scorer can change a postseason matchup, that can be plenty.
Agbaji and Brown can fix the ugly possessions
Agbaji is the cleanest example of a player whose market value and basketball value do not have to be the same thing. The 26-year-old wing is coming off a season in which he averaged 6.7 points, 2.3 rebounds and fewer than one assist per game, and the team holding his rights declined to preserve them with a qualifying offer. That is not the résumé of a player with leverage.
His offensive limitations are also real. If the jumper is not falling, opponents can treat him as the least threatening piece on the floor and squeeze extra help toward primary creators. For a team already short on shooting, that can make half-court possessions feel cramped before the action even begins.
But there is still a very usable NBA player buried inside that problem. Agbaji is 6-foot-5, has spent a large share of his career taking difficult perimeter assignments and has consistently graded as someone trusted to defend high-level ball-handlers. That is a skill teams spend all season trying to manufacture. It matters even more when a roster has plenty of offense but nobody it feels comfortable sending at a quick guard for 25 possessions.
The upside case is simple: the shot returns to something close to the respectable levels he showed in earlier seasons. He has already had years above 35 percent from three on meaningful volume, including a season just under 40 percent. Nobody signing him should project that as the baseline, but a low-cost contract does not require certainty. If Agbaji defends and merely forces teams to acknowledge him in the corners, he can become an eighth or ninth man surprisingly quickly.
Brown is almost the inverse. He is not being signed for one elite calling card. He is being signed because he understands how to keep possessions alive. At 30, the version who could credibly enter Sixth Man conversations is probably gone, but the connective version still has value. Brown averaged 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and a steal last season while hitting 38.5 percent of his threes.
That shooting number deserves skepticism because his career track record sits lower. The more dependable part is everything around it. Brown cuts when defenders turn their heads, can handle in secondary actions, makes quick decisions, attacks an open lane and is comfortable operating in the little pockets that appear after a defense traps a star. He does not need five designed plays to influence a game.
For a contender, that is exactly the kind of veteran who can become useful in April after looking ordinary in October. Coaches trust players who know where to stand, when to move and how to avoid hijacking a possession. Brown can still be that player, and a minimum-level price makes the risk tiny.
Waters and Whitmore offer two very different kinds of offense
Lindy Waters III is the specialist of the group. His traditional box-score line from last season — 2.4 points, 0.7 rebounds and 0.5 assists — is not going to sell tickets. His value comes from the geometry he can create without ever touching the ball for long.
Over his NBA career, Waters has been willing to fire threes at an unusually high rate when he is on the court. Among players with comparable minutes over the past five seasons, his per-36 three-point volume belongs in a tiny group populated by some of the league's most aggressive shooters. His 36.3 percent conversion rate over that span is not elite, but it is good enough that defenders cannot simply abandon him.
The more interesting detail is how he gets those shots. Waters is active away from the ball. He screens, relocates and forces defenders to communicate through actions that do not appear in a basic scoring line. On a second unit built around a downhill creator, that movement can be more valuable than another player waiting stationary in the corner.
He is not a universal answer. A playoff opponent can target limited defenders and teams may prefer a bigger two-way wing. But every roster eventually has nights when the offense needs oxygen. A cheap shooter who is willing to sprint through actions and release the ball instantly is one of the easiest emergency tools to understand.
Whitmore is nothing like that. His appeal is less about structure and more about force. The 22-year-old has already bounced from Houston to Washington, then to Cleveland before being waived, an unusually unsettled path for a player who was the 20th pick only three years ago. His time with the Wizards also ended badly: concerns about passing and defensive engagement cut into his role, and a blood clot in his right shoulder ended his season.
Those warning signs are why he is available. They are also why he may be the highest-upside gamble left on the market. Whitmore is 6-foot-7, attacks the rim with real power and has produced more than 20 points per 36 minutes across his career. That is not proof that he can anchor an efficient bench offense, but it is evidence that scoring is not theoretical for him.
A rebuilding team can give him developmental runway. A contender can define the role more ruthlessly: run the floor, punish tilted defenses, attack closeouts and defend hard enough to stay on the court. If he cannot do that, the contract can be disposable. If he can, finding a 22-year-old rotation scorer for the minimum is exactly the kind of transaction that makes the rest of the league look slow.
Whitmore is also a reminder that cheap free agents do not have to be low-ceiling veterans. Sometimes the market price collapses because a young player's first few environments did not work. The trick is separating a temporary development problem from a permanent basketball problem. One team will eventually decide that the chance is worth taking.
Vince Williams Jr. is the patience play — and maybe the smartest one
Williams is the strangest free agent here because any team signing him has to accept that the immediate return could be close to zero. The 25-year-old is recovering from a torn ACL in his left knee and is expected to miss a major portion of the 2026-27 season. That makes him a roster-management decision as much as a basketball one.
For the right organization, though, the delay may be the reason to act now. Teams with enough depth to survive the regular season can sign Williams before his rehabilitation is complete, control the environment around his return and potentially structure a deal that carries value into a second season. Waiting until he is healthy means waiting until everyone else can see the same player again.
Before the injury, Williams had a profile playoff teams covet. He averaged 8.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists last season, but the counting stats undersell the appeal. He has the strength to defend larger players, competes through physical possessions and can help lineups switch actions without immediately creating a mismatch. That kind of defensive versatility becomes more important, not less, once postseason scouting starts hunting the weakest link.
The swing skill is the jumper. Williams hit 36.8 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes in limited action last season, but his shooting record has not been stable enough to treat that as solved. If he eventually pairs credible spot-up shooting with his defense and secondary playmaking, he becomes an easy player to imagine closing certain games. If the shot disappears, the fit becomes more lineup-dependent.
That still makes him a worthwhile bet for organizations that can think beyond opening night. The league often rewards teams that buy injured or distressed assets before their value normalizes. Williams does not need to return as a star. He needs to return as a strong, multipositional defender who can pass, rebound and make enough open threes to avoid being ignored.
All five names underline the same late-offseason truth. The market does not have to contain a hidden All-Star to matter. Agbaji can defend the ball. Brown can connect an offense. Waters can stretch a defense with movement shooting. Whitmore can create points in a hurry. Williams can become a postseason-shaped role player once healthy. Those are real NBA skills, and the cost of testing them is approaching the minimum.
Training camp will create new injuries, surprise rotation battles and roster imbalances. Somebody will discover in October that they need exactly what one of these players does. The smartest move may be making that discovery a few weeks early.
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