Help On The Way For Wizards?

Ho-hum, the Wizards beat the Pistons last night. But that's not hard to do since Detroit acquired Allen Iverson last month. The Pistons are only 8-9 since the trade and sitting in the middle of the pack in a competitive Eastern Conference. The Wiz, meanwhile, are 4-15 and going nowhere fast. Or are they?

Reports out of Memphis say the Grizzlies and Wizards have had talks about Washington acquiring PG Javaris Crittenton for the low, low price of the 1st round pick the Grizzle gave the Wiz in the Juan Carlos Navarro deal from two years ago. Said pick is basically lottery protected through 2013 and turns into a second round pick and cash after that. The Grizz don't figure to be a playoff power in the West anytime soon, so the Wiz might as well get something for that pick while they can. Making the deal might also erase the folly of picking Oleksy Pecherov in 2006, which was purely a cap move at the time, but take a look at who Ernie Grunfeld passed on to pick Big Oily: Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Jordan Farmar and Sergio Rodriguez.

The rub here, and there's always a rub, is that the Wiz have a full roster with 15 players and are dangerously close to the luxury tax. And say what you want about Abe Pollin, but surely you can't expect him to pay the luxury tax on an underachieving lottery-bound team with an interim coach. Perhaps the Wiz will try and clear some roster space in a separate deal? Stay tuned.