After a strong second season with the Los Angeles Lakers, the value of Talen Horton-Tucker increased in the NBA and he started drawing interest from other teams.

The Lakers extended a qualifying offer for the 20-year-old shooting guard making him a restricted free agent. Other teams can now make offers to THT, but the Lakers will be able to match any offer and keep the player, as salary cap expert Larry Coon explained.

“He’s within his first three years in the league. The Lakers gave a qualifying offer which means he’s restricted,” he said on Spectrum SportsNet. “If another team tries to sign him to a contract, the Lakers have the option of saying ‘we’ll match that and we’ll keep him.’ And it gets even better. With a two-year player there’s another kind of weird rule called The Gilbert Arenas provision and what that says is other teams are limited in the amount that they can offer him. So they can’t offer than the Lakers could match. The Lakers are in driving seat.”

The former second round draft pick averaged 9 points, 2.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game for the Lakers this past season. He earned $900K and $1.5 million during his first two seasons in the NBA respectively.