Well, yeah. If you sign a lease, you're on the hook for it, so he could be out quite a bit of money since it sounds like he's looking for a place for his family, and not just getting a place with several of his teammates. If he assumed he'd be traded, why throw away thousands of dollars for nothing? There's a reason many pro athletes end up broke shortly after they retire... he probably doesn't want to be one of them. He could easily ask to go month to month on rent, even offering to put down a higher security deposit for the chance to go month to month. It's not like he's going to have to pay a full year's rent up front. He has a wife and a kid. That means he needs a two bedroom. You can find a pretty good two bedroom anywhere you want in the metro area for around $800. All he would have to do is tell the landlord I'll double the security deposit if you let me go month to month on rent because I don't know if I'm going to be traded. For 6 months, that's like $6,400 including the doubled security deposit. If he gets traded before the season starts, he can tell them they can keep the security deposit for holding the apartment for him. Yeah you're out $1,600 at that point but that's not going to cause him to go broke.