A scant 21 days remain until my favorite day of the entire year, the NBA draft. And while Cleveland and San Antonio start the NBA finals tonight (9:00 p.m. on ABC), the rest of the league, including the Washington Wizards, are firmly entrenched in the off season. What’s in store for Team Zero? Let’s take a look.
The Wizards have roughly $38 million in guaranteed salaries committed to the core of the team next year, that being Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Etan Thomas, Antonio Daniels, Brendan Haywood and Darius Songaila. For some reason Andray Blatche’s contract details aren’t listed, so I’m not quite sure what his contract situation is.
Jarvis Hayes has a $3.4 million qualifying offer that I doubt the team will pick up and DeShawn Stevenson has a player option worth about one million that he definitely won’t be taking. After leaving $10 million over three years on the table at Orlando last year, Stevenson’s going to be looking for at least that amount from either Washington or another team this summer. My guess is the Wiz will use the money on Mister Fifty and wish Hayes (a career 40% shooter that’s played just 226 games in four years) all the best in his future endeavors.
