Restricted free agency is over (at last) but rookie scale extension chatter -- and even some fresh trade talk -- is starting to percolate

The Jake Fischer Latest covers it all AND serves as this week's Sunday Best submission

Two games have already been played in Abu Dhabi and Australia. The NBA preseason is underway domestically, too.

No less notable: The restricted free agencies of Jonathan Kuminga and Quentin Grimes have come to their respective, merciful ends.

We likewise saw Nikola Jović sign a four-year, $62.5 million contract extension with Miami this week.

There's even some fresh trade chatter starting to circulate.

It's time, then, to get to the latest from my notebook on the final throes of the aforementioned restricted free agency sagas, how they might impact rookie scale contract extension talks that will be ongoing for the next two weeks and the latest rumbles about how some of those negotiations are going … including particularly pertinent updates from Atlanta and Houston:

Kuminga and Grimes indeed re-signed with the Warriors and 76ers in recent days as expected, but we can't leave restricted free agency behind as a topic completely.

Not when first-round picks from the 2022 draft are in the midst of rookie scale contract extension talks that — if they fail to deliver an extension before the Oct. 20 deadline like Jović just secured on South Beach — lead to restricted free agency next summer.