Wizards Auditioning Uzoh To Replace Injured Price

Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports reports via Twitter that Ben Uzoh is working out today for the Wizards, who will be without point guard A.J. Price for four to six weeks because of a broken hand, as Michael Lee of The Washington Post reveals. Shaun Livingston is the only healthy point guard left for Washington, which is at the 15-man roster limit, meaning someone would have to be waived if Uzoh is to be signed. That would most likely be Earl Barron, who's on a non-guaranteed deal for the minimum salary.

Uzoh, who was in training camp with the Nuggets, is currently with the D-League's Springfield Armor. He's appeared in 60 games over the past two seasons with three NBA teams, including a 16-game stint with the Raptors last year in which he started eight contests and averaged 4.8 points and 3.7 assists in 22.3 minutes per game.

Lee, when he reported the news of Price's injury, didn't expect the team to sign another point guard, instead believing Washington would simply shift more ball-handling duties onto Jordan Crawford. The Wizards are already on the hook for the partial guarantee of $300K on the contract of Jannero Pargo, whom they waived to sign Livingston. They're paying the same amount to point guard Shelvin Mack after cutting him loose at the end of training camp. The team has had issues at point guard all season long in the absence of John Wall, who has no timetable for his return from a left patella injury.

The Wizards, who are over the cap, have $3.1MM of their mid-level exception and their full $1.957MM bi-annual exception at their disposal if they want to add someone for more than the minimum salary. Yet given the dearth of intriguing options on the list of available free agent point guards, it seems unlikely they'll have to dip into either exception.

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