Bucks 148, Wizards 129
Wizards trade Porter
in first sign of breakup
Team sends forward to Bulls for Parker, Portis
Porter, a 6-foot-8 forward, was set to play in the Wizards’ game Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Bucks when he received the news of the trade. After removing his Wizards’ uniform, Porter said his goodbyes and left Fiserv Forum minutes before tip-off.
The Bucks made short work of the Wizards, rolling to a 148-129 victory.
In 2013, the Wizards selected Porter with the No. 3 overall pick, and then signed him to a four-year, $106.5 million contract extension in the summer of 2017. In his sixth season out of Georgetown, Porter, 25, was considered to be the third building block to the Wizards’ future alongside Wall and Bradley Beal. Just last week, majority owner Ted Leonsis declared the team was “not trading” its big three.
However, Wednesday’s trade is a clear signal of how the Wizards want to cut salary and reshape their identity following the news that Wall could miss all of next season after rupturing his left Achilles’ heel in a fall at his home. With Porter’s $26 million for the 2018-19 season coming off the books, the Wizards are now only slightly above the luxury tax threshold with a team salary over $125 million.
Parker, a former No. 2 overall pick out of Duke in 2014, is a 6-foot-8 forward in the first season of a two-year, $40 million contract. However, the deal includes a team option for next season, allowing the Wizards some time to make a decision on whether they want to keep him. A 6-8 forward, he comes to them with comparable numbers to Porter — 14.3 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists.
Portis, a 6-11 forward, is averaging 14.1 points and 7.3 rebounds. He is scheduled to be a free agent this summer.
The trade is the latest in the Wizards’ aggressive moves to curb salary: keeping a rotating 10-day signee on roster instead of adding a free agent in the open roster spot for the remainder of the season and trading Jodie Meeks, Jason Smith as well as homegrown forward Kelly Oubre Jr., who would have been a free agent in the summer. However, the Porter deal comes as the most definitive statement of the financial direction moving forward as Wall’s “supermax” contract hits next season.
Wall, who was already out for the season after surgery on his left heel to remove bone spurs, further clouded his future with the fall at his residence Jan. 29. The fall caused Wall to sustain an “unusual” rupture of his Achilles’ tendon, so described by the team’s Director of Medical Services, Wiemi Douoguih. Wall now awaits surgery — his second of the year and his fifth major procedure since 2016.
The Wizards also sent Markieff Morris to the New Orleans Pelicans in a deal later Wednesday night, according to The Athletic.
“Our focus is on his recovery and we’re going to support him because he’s going to need the support,” Coach Scott Brooks said Wednesday morning before the Wizards faced the Bucks. “This is another obstacle that he’ll have to overcome and he will. Because of his toughness, he’s built for this and I’ve told him the other day: ‘You’re built for this. You can handle anything thrown at you.’”
After the Wizards’ Wednesday morning shoot-around, Beal, the last remaining active member of the Wizards’ core three, recognized how Wall’s injury would impact the franchise. He even seemed resolved to the fact of a major shift coming.
“It adjusted a lot, not just a little bit,” Beal said of his personal mind-set following the news. “That changes the whole everything moving on. In terms of — hell, if we make a move in the next day and a half or in the summer or on to next year. It definitely plays a factor. We have to play our parts right and play our pieces right but at the end of the day it’s out of our control.”
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