4 buyout candidates the Washington Wizards should target
By Keith Cork
Dragan Bender
Position: Power Forward/Small Forward
Age: 22
Dragan Bender was always going to be a bit of a project coming into the NBA. People were willing to take on that project because his specs are absolutely enticing: A 7-foot forward that can shoot the 3-ball with pretty awesome accuracy.
The Croatian Sensation hasn’t quite lived up to the hype, averaging only 6.5 points in the sole season he saw over 20 minutes per contest. And he played 82 games that season too, so he really got a long look.
Still, the big man shot 36.6 percent from behind the arc in that season and might learn a thing or two from the Latvian Laser Dāvis Bertāns if he joins the roster. Their skill sets overlap quite a bit, creating a bit of redundancy, but that’s a-okay on a team that has a bunch of question marks.
Dāvis Bertāns deserves to be in the 3-point contest. light. Related Story
Bertāns is set to get his payday this upcoming offseason, so if we can showcase Bender for the rest of the year and get similar shooting numbers from him, we could save ourselves a lot of money and the risk of a bad contract.
Bender never really had a shot this season appearing in only 7 games for the Milwaukee Bucks. The big man was waived rather than bought out, so if the Wizards were to swoop him up, they would foot the bill for the remaining two years on his contract (which are minimum level anyways).