2013 NBA Free Agent Rumors: Jeff Teague and the RFA Blues

According to Marc Spears late Friday night, Jeff Teague's camp let it leak that the soon-to-be fifth year guard has not been at all pleased with how the beginning of his Restricted Free Agency has gone.

ATL G Jeff Teague's camp has"growing frustration" in how his free agency has been handled with zero meaningful contract discussions, Y!source

— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) July 6, 2013

Every year it strikes. A couple of RFA get some love and all the other wonder where their love is.

This year, Tiago Splitter got the love, a 4 year, 36 million dollar gift basket to stay in San Antonio with the Spurs.

Tyreke Evans got so much love, they had to concoct a 3-team deal to celebrate it, culminating with Evans getting a 4 year, 44 million dollar deal from the New Orleans Pelicans.

And there Jeff sits, with only a rumor to go and play under the same coach who benched him in the fourth quarter of games and constantly, if not correctly, asked for Jeff to be more aggressive in games.

Restricted free agency is exactly that, restricted. Teams that have the right of first refusal will often wait until the more pressing business is completed before moving onto the RFA.

In concert with that, teams also want to see where the market is for that player so they don't outbid themselves or spend more than they have to in order to retain their player's services.

Teams that may be interested in a player like Teague could be waiting out the team with rights, because that team may get to the point of their other endeavors that they rescind the qualifying offer that holds that right of first refusal in place.

Other teams don't want to occupy their cap space on an offer sheet that they feel the team holding the rights will certainly match. This was more of an issue when teams had 14 days and then seven days to match. Now, the hold is a less punitive three days.

Still, Teague sits and now he's moved onto stewing. The Hawks have been through the losing end of the Dwight Howard sweepstakes, and signed a pair of forwards.

Now that Howard is signed, they could begin to look at someone like Nikola Pekovic, another RFA from Minnesota, whose team has also handled a lot of business that did not include an offer for their own RFA.

Nobody can officially do anything until July 10th anyway, when the cap and all of the relevant numbers become official and free agency can officially open.

Maybe by then the Hawks will choose to rescind Teague's QO or sign and trade him or decide to wait him out and find his own market, putting the burden back on the player.This often causes more anguish and feelings of disrespect and a lack of loyalty on the part of the team. Josh Childress was so steamed he went to Greece instead of even signing the QO and playing out his option to become a restricted free agent.

Josh Smith did find a deal with the Memphis Grizzlies, which the Hawks matched after seven days, but it took until September for Smith to find that deal and the lack of respect he felt from the Hawks was seared into his being.

As for Teague, Milwaukee certainly seems to be interested and, if the Hawks are looking to bring in anybody else, such as Pekovic or a trade for Omer Asik, it's likely that any number above the 6 million dollar cap hold will be too much for the Hawks to match.