Washington Wizards NBA Trade Deadline 2017 Reaction: How Bojan Bogdanovic Will Help the Wizards

By: Ryan Eugene (@butterscotcht)

I can get down with this trade. I’m disappointed the team parted with the 2017 first-round pick, but I’m happy that at least Andrew Nicholson left with it.  Ernie Grunfeld has made a living off  burning picks to cover for previous mistakes, and this one is no different.

The only two players I would have been willing to part with a first for were Lou Williams and Will Barton.

Both are under contract for another year, meaning the Washington Wizards can take advantage of their reasonable salary cap numbers.  The problem with those players is that those teams aren’t willing to take back the contract of Nicholson.

The Lakers already have mammoth deals with Timofey Mozgov and Luol Deng, and are not looking to add more cap space along with giving up a player like Lou Will.

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Meanwhile, Denver is looking to move the contracts of Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari.

Bogdanovic is a player I’ve wanted the Wizards to go after all season, and think he will be a key piece moving forward.

The Wizards bench has been bad at offense and defense this season.

With the way the starters have played, I think it is more important to add offense to the bench than a defensive piece that can’t cover up all the holes.

On the season, Bogdanovic is the 15th leading scorer among shooting guards at 14.2 points in 27 MPG.

Two other quick notes on his prolific scoring.

Firstly, his career high is 44 points, two more than Bradley Beal’s.  Secondly, in the Olympics this summer, he averaged 25.3 points, leading all scorers.

While his 3-point percentage is just under 36%, he should benefit from playing on an offense where he doesn’t have to rely on creating his own shot as often. With Jeremy Lin on the sidelines for much of the season, Bogdanovic has taken over much of the creator role on offense.

Now, when playing alongside Wall, he can focus on moving without the ball, for open cross court threes.  On the bench unit, he can continue to play his more dominant role as he immediately passes Trey Burke and Tomas Satoransky in offensive prowess.

His upcoming restricted free agency will be interesting, as this deal was partly to help Washington afford to keep Otto Porter.

As a restricted free agent, the Wizards will have a chance to match any offer, but I do worry that we’ll be looking at somewhere in the range of three years and $36 million, probably out of the Wizards’ budget.  Last summer, Mirza Teletovic got a three-year, $30 million deal with Milwaukee, after putting up similar numbers to those of Bogdanovic this season.

Chris McCullough is an interesting addition as a second year project power forward.

His salary wasn’t necessary to make the trade work, so the Wizards must see something they like in him. The team could have opted to keep an open roster space to sign someone who gets waived over the next week or two.

McCullough was a great prospect coming out of high school, but only played 16 games before tearing his ACL.  He’s already more intriguing than many of Washington’s young bigs, and hopefully he can develop under the tutelage of Scott Brooks.