nate33 wrote:Interesting thought on Tristan. He'd be a good fit here. The problem is, we can't absorb any additional salary this year or next year because of the luxtax. Which means, the only way to trade him is to send out Mahinmi in the process and I don't see Cleveland agreeing to that unless we include incentive.
I don't like Ingram as a target because I don't necessarily believe in him as much as others seem to but I do think it's past time to start considering serious renovations of the Wizards. And that means going beyond trading Wall. Trading Wall isn't going to solve anything. The Wizards can't really take on added salary this season so they'll be looking for teams offering similar salary or less in trade.
The amount of teams that can send out ~$19 million this season while watching it balloon to ~$38 million next season is actually very restricted, even moreso when you cut out the teams that aren't looking for a PG moving into his 30s who relies on speed/athleticism and can't shoot. And they will have the cost of whoever they might have signed with that money next offseason built into the trade, too. Wall could be traded, but the returns won't be pretty if the team tries to trade him and almost certainly would involve a team sending back a contract they don't like, too. I'm all for the idea of trading Wall if an opportunity presents itself but if the Wizards keep waiting on that kind of opportunity they're eventually going to be too late and we will get to watch more ~.500 ball and first round exits along with some years where they don't make the playoffs when one of Wall or Beal isn't healthy.
Porter is the guy I expect the Wizards will most consider moving, and I sort of get it but I also don't think he's going to return much. More likely if the team moves him they save some lux-tax payments next offseason. The lux tax situation next season isn't as pretty as you've outlined. Don't forget Dwight Howard's player option for $5.6 mil. He's totally opting into that. And the Wizards have $116.4 million committed to 8 players leaving them just over $18 million for the remaining 8 players on the roster, and the Wizards' first round pick is going to cost roughly $2.5-3 million of that (Troy Brown is getting over $2.7 million) and if the Wizards actually implode that number goes up. The minimum salary hold is nearly a million. I'm starting to think Oubre and Sato might both be gone.
Ultimately, Beal is still the better player overall on the better contract. The only hesitations I really have to blowing anything up is I don't want to see Ernie manage another rebuild. I don't really want to see Ernie manage more seasons as he tries to emulate the NBA equivalent of entropy, either, though.