Washington Wizards Withdraw Qualifying Offer to Bojan Bogdanovic, He Signs with Indiana Pacers on Two-Year Deal

Washington Wizards’ restricted free agent Bojan Bogdanovic is no longer a restricted free agent or a Wizard. In a span of less than 20 minutes the sharpshooter had his qualifying offer withdrawn, and signed with the Indiana Pacers.

With the cap gymnastics going on in Washington, it recently became apparent that the team would not be resigning both Otto Porter and Bojan Bogdanovic. Porter is in line for a $106 million deal, and re-signing Bogdanovic would put the Wizards far into the luxury tax. The team simply was not willing to go that far over for a role player, and rightly so.

It was only a matter of time before Bogdanovic had his qualifying offer withdrawn, and that time officially came at 2:32 PM ET.

Earlier in free agency, reports surfaced that Bojan was seeking around $15-16 million a year for at least three years. That wouldn’t be the case though. He came to a quick agreement with Indiana, and his agent must have been aware of the market for his client.  In fact, there were only 14 minutes between the news of Bojan being a UFA, and him signing with Indiana.

After trading Paul George, the Pacers will have room for a player of Bojan’s skill, and in a larger role, he may be betting on himself to have a strong two seasons, before cashing in during 2019 free agency.

The Wizards of course, are betting that an assortment of cheap signings can help reshape one of the league’s worst benches last season.

There had been talk of the Wizards potentially working out a sign-and-trade with Bojan, but in the end, they found it more beneficial to get off his cap hold, as they prepared to match Otto Porter’s deal in the next 30 or so hours.

Next: Otto Porter's Poker

Bojan was the true definition of a rental, only playing in 39 games in Washington (26 regular season games and 13 games in the playoffs).