Wizards Offseason Review

The Washington Wizards have finally realized that they need to rebuild and have blown the team up. They decided to trade most of their good players in an attempt to hit the jackpot with all of the lottery tickets they've acquired. They may have gotten worse now but their future got brighter. And even if you don’t care about that, there will be a special announcement at the end of this blog so read to the end anyway.

Bradley Beal was the first Wizard traded. He went to the Suns for Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, six second-round picks and four pick swaps.The Suns also received Isiah Todd and Jordan Goodwin in the deal. Chris Paul has been called the best leader in basketball and while he isn’t in his prime anymore, he is still a quality basketball player. Landry Shament was salary filler and his deal expires next year. Just don’t get too attached to either guy. The Wizards basically traded Beal for cap space and assets they can trade later — or in some cases sooner.

Next we have the Kristaps Porzingis trade. Porzingis was my favorite player on the Wizards and I was sad to see him go. As much as fans hated former general manager Tommy Sheppard’s drafting, you can’t deny the fact the man was an amazing trader. Besides turning John Wall into Russell Westbrook and then turning Westbrook into Kyle Kuzma and other assets, Sheppard’s best move was trading Spencer Dinwiddie’s and Davis Bertans’s awful contracts into Porzingis from Dallas last year. (I remember when my friends who are Knicks fans were laughing saying it was a bad trade. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW?).

Anyway the three team trade was as followed:

The Celtics received Kristaps Porzingis, No. 25 overall pick, 2024 first-round pick (via Warriors), The Grizzlies received Marcus Smart

The Wizards received No. 35 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, Tyus Jones, Danilo Gallinari, Mike Muscala.

YAY MORE SECOND ROUND PICKS. Also, Jones was one of the best backups in the league last year with Memphis and will get a chance to start on the rebuilding Wizards. Gallinari and Muscala are scoring depth and salary filler with Gallinari especially being a reliable scorer and outside shooter. Jones, Gallinari, and Muscala’s contracts all expire next year, adding to the Wizards’ cap space.

Four days after being acquired for Beal, Paul was traded to the Warriors for Jordan Poole, Patrick Baldwin Jr, Ryan Rollins, a 2027 second-round pick, a protected 2030 first-round pick and cash considerations. The Wizards finally got an actual first round pick instead of pick swaps, as well as getting young players with potential in Poole, Rollins, and Baldwin Jr. Poole is making $30 million a year and it just seems weird that the Wizards acquired a player with a huge cap hit. But that’s just me and Poole can bounce back and make me look dumb so we’ll have to wait and see.

The final member left of the Wizards big three was Kyle Kuzma. He signed a 4 year $90,000,000 contract to return to D.C and be the face of the franchise. As the leader of a rebuilding team, he will make it so the team will at least be fun to watch when they are bad.

Now for the announcement. I am starting a sports podcast called “But it's all coming back with Ethan Berman.” Be on the lookout for the first episode later this week.