What follows is a collection of the latest intel we’ve gathered about the Wizards’ trade-market intentions and possibilities. We’ve granted league sources anonymity to give them the freedom to speak candidly and because NBA rules prohibit officials from teams to openly discuss players who play for other teams.
Kyle Kuzma
Kuzma still plans to decline his $13.0 million player option for 2023-24 and enter unrestricted free agency in July for the first time in his career, as The Athletic reported two months ago.
Wizards officials would like to re-sign Kuzma, who will turn 28 in July, to a long-term deal. If they do not trade him in the days ahead, they would enter the summer with his Bird rights.
In free agency, those Bird rights would allow the Wizards to re-sign him to a first-year salary up to the maximum player salary for a player with six years’ tenure in the league. The Bird rights also would allow Washington to offer him a five-year contract, while all other teams would be limited to offering him at most four years.
Wizards decision-makers don’t sound all that concerned about their ability to retain Kuzma, and publicly at least, Kuzma has said he could “100 percent” see himself re-signing with the Wizards, adding, “They showed me love. They have allowed me to have a platform to show my game and show the league I’m not just a role player. I’m someone that’s arriving right now. That’s the biggest thing for me.
“I want to keep elevating. Having a leadership position, having somewhere where I’m developing and playing my game and my role and I’m getting better every single game — that’s what I care about.”
It’s difficult to envision a contending team offering Kuzma a larger role on offense than he has with the Wizards. Indeed, Washington coach Wes Unseld Jr. has given Kuzma significant freedom as a scorer, a playmaker and a crunchtime shot-maker. His usage rate is the highest of his career, according to both Basketball-Reference and the advanced analytics database Cleaning the Glass.
One risk to the Wizards, of course, is that once Kuzma reaches unrestricted free agency, he could sign elsewhere without the Wizards receiving any players and/or draft picks in return.
League sources told us the Wizards have shown no willingness to entertain trade offers for Kuzma. The six teams with projected significant 2023 cap space this summer — Detroit, Houston, Indiana, Oklahoma City, Orlando and San Antonio — don’t project to be contenders next season (though if any one of them gets the first pick in the 2023 draft, and takes Victor Wembanyama, they’d suddenly be much more intriguing).
“I think they’re playing it pretty smart just from the standpoint of the guy is such a valuable guy,” one rival team official said. “They’d have his Bird rights, and those are valuable, especially to a team that may not have cap space. If a team that doesn’t have cap space is trying to acquire him, that’s why they’re trying to acquire him.
“So it’s not just this expiring contract, or this potentially expiring contract, it’s how good the guy is coupled with the fact that the team that then acquires him can then control him (to a certain extent through holding his Bird rights).”
League sources view part of Washington’s rationale for the Hachimura trade as clearing a financial pathway to allow the team to re-sign Kuzma without going into the luxury tax for the 2023-24 season. The John Collins extension the Hawks gave their now 25-year-old forward in 2021 — five years, $125 million — provides possible parameters for a potential Kuzma re-signing with the Wizards.
“I think they will end up using Collins as a baseline whether it’s fair or not,” another team executive said.
Bradley Beal
It’s well-documented that Beal has a no-trade clause in the five-year, $251 million contract he signed last summer.
The Wizards have no interest in trading Beal, and even if the team ever wants to move its 29-year-old starting shooting guard, the no-trade clause would limit the potential destinations to only the franchises Beal would want to join.
But it would be a mistake to assume that Beal will never be traded. In theory, there’s nothing to stop Beal from asking team officials for a trade at any point during his current contract, especially if he perceives the front office hasn’t done enough to upgrade the roster around him. The jury is still out on what Beal thinks of Kuzma and/or Porziņģis long term, but the pressure is always on the Wizards to add wherever and whenever possible — which makes another deal before Thursday’s deadline, even if along the margins, possible.
Deni Avdija
Best known for his defensive versatility, Avdija, the ninth overall pick in 2020, tends to be perceived by other teams as having the most two-way upside of any of Washington’s young players.
Even though he’s in his third NBA season, he turned just 22 years old last month.
Still, league sources don’t regard the combo forward as having significant trade value at this time.
“I think it’s very limited because he’s still a highly speculative player,” one source from another team said.
Kristaps Porziņģis
The 27-year-old center has enjoyed a strong bounce-back season, especially in terms of largely avoiding the injuries that typified his first seven years in the league. He’s appeared in 44 of Washington’s 52 games. He also ranks second on the team in scoring, averaging 22.5 points per game, and has exceeded initial expectations defensively.
Porziņģis has a $36.0 million player option for next season, and he recently told The Athletic he hasn’t decided on whether he’ll exercise that option.
Still, our league sources are skeptical that Porziņģis would command much on the trade market at this time. But if he exercises his player option after this season, that expiring contract could be valuable as a trade chip for Washington to engage with teams that would be looking to divest players with large, long-term salaries.
Conjuring a star
It’s no secret that Washington would welcome adding an All-Star-caliber player to the mix, but the league sources we spoke to regard Washington’s chances of doing so as low.
A large part of the reason for that skepticism stems from the Stepien rule, which prevents a team from trading its own first-round picks for two consecutive years.
In Washington’s 2020 deal to unload John Wall’s massive contract, Washington had to pair a protected first-round pick with Wall to Houston for Russell Westbrook.
That pick, which has since been rerouted through subsequent trades and now is owed to the New York Knicks, has various protections: top-14 protected for this year’s draft, top 12 in 2024, top 10 in 2025 and top eight in 2026.
Because the pick might be conveyed as late as 2026, the earliest Washington can trade any first-round pick is 2028 (unless the Knicks would agree to eliminate the protections). Also, Washington is not owed a first-round pick by any team.
Without immediate first-round picks to offer, league sources view it as difficult for Washington to amass enough attractive pieces to acquire a high-level player through a trade. One league source, however, said the Wizards were among the teams he most expected to be active before Thursday’s deadline — not for a star player per se but to add to their depth with a smaller deal.
Monté Morris
Morris, a solid point guard and a good 3-point shooter who will turn 28 in June, could entice teams that need help at that position. For instance, the LA Clippers would like to add a veteran point guard, as our colleague Law Murray noted several days ago.
A Clippers scout attended the Wizards-Portland Trail Blazers game in Washington on Friday even though the Clippers have completed their season series against the Wizards and don’t have another game against the Trail Blazers until March 19.
Morris is on a team-friendly contract with salaries of $9.1 million for this season and $9.8 million for next season. The Wizards do have depth at point guard with defensive ace Delon Wright, Nunn and Jordan Goodwin.
Will Barton
Barton, a 32-year-old wing, has fallen out of the Wizards’ rotation and is in the final year of a contract that is paying him $14.4 million this season.
The Wizards would have to decide if taking on money beyond this season by using Barton’s expiring contract in a trade would be worth it. (For what it’s worth, the 2022-23 salaries of the Clippers’ Luke Kennard and the San Antonio Spurs’ Doug McDermott are among the players whose numbers are almost perfect matches with Barton’s.)
But given Washington’s hopes of bringing both Kuzma and Porziņģis back next season, combined with Ted Leonsis’ history of paying the luxury tax — only once since he became the team’s principal governor, in 2010 — it’s hard to see the Wizards going that route.
If Barton is not dealt before the deadline, he would be a natural candidate for a buyout.
deni coming along..only person I'm mad at is johnny Davis but apparently he's solid at defense in practice. 
