Saddiq Bey

Southwest Notes: Zion, Bey, Alvarado, DSJ, Spurs

October 5th, 2025 at 11:09am CST by Luke Adams

Zion Williamson was limited to just 30 games last season for health reasons, while Trey Murphy‘s year came to an early end due to shoulder surgery. So it was a very encouraging sign for the Pelicans that Williamson (15 points) and Murphy (18 points) were their leading scorers in their preseason opener. New Orleans became the first NBA team to play a game in Australia, winning an exhibition contest over Melbourne United on Friday.

“It was electric,” Pelicans head coach Willie Green said, per Rod Walker of NOLA.com. “The fans were in tune. They were engaged. It was a really great platform to come here and play high-level competition.”

Green lauded Williamson for his defensive activity after he picked up a pair of steals on Friday. That effort on the defensive end was on display again on Sunday as the Pelicans won their matchup against the South East Melbourne Phoenix. Williamson scored just eight points, but racked up nine rebounds (eight defensive), three steals, and two blocks in 15 minutes of action en route to a 127-92 win.

As good as Williamson was, it was new Pelican Saddiq Bey who stole the show in Sunday’s victory. Bey, who hasn’t played a regular season game since March 2024 due to an ACL tear, had 21 points in 21 minutes, knocking down four three-pointers and registering a game-high +27 plus-minus mark.

“I am just grateful to be out here,” Bey said in a post-game interview, according to Walker. “The opportunity to play in Australia is is a blessing.”

Here’s more from around the Southwest:

Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado departed Sunday’s game in the third quarter due to an apparent right leg injury, Walker notes. Green said after the game that Alvarado will be reevaluated when the team returns home to New Orleans.
Within an extensive breakdown of takeaways from the Mavericks‘ training camp, Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal writes that head coach Jason Kidd praised Dennis Smith Jr. as a camp standout, lauding his “energy.” Smith is on a non-guaranteed contract and has an uphill battle to earn a regular season roster spot, but it sounds like he’s doing all he can to make his case.
After spending most of last season in the role of “acting” Spurs head coach, Mitch Johnson has the permanent title heading into 2025/26. Running a training camp for the first time, he has made an effort to implement his own style while carrying over many of the lessons he learned from longtime San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich, as Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News details (subscription required). “(Last season) we were all just trying to maintain what was already going on, the things we put in during training camp, the principles we had,” veteran forward Harrison Barnes said. “Coming into this year, there’s just building blocks that will be different that (Johnson) can say, ‘OK look, I have full ownership of the things that are going on.'”

Southwest Notes: DFS, Eason, Bey, Spurs, Wemby, Prosper

October 2nd, 2025 at 11:52am CST by Luke Adams

Confirming previous reporting, Rockets head coach Ime Udoka acknowledged on Wednesday to reporters, including Danielle Lerner of The Houston Chronicle (subscription required), that newly added forward Dorian Finney-Smith will “probably not” be ready for the start of the season as he recovers from June ankle surgery. According to Udoka, Finney-Smith hasn’t yet been cleared for contact, though he’s doing “all the shooting and other things with treatment as well during practice.”

As Lerner writes, the Rockets are also continuing to manage the workloads of center Steven Adams and forward Tari Eason, who were coming off procedures on their right knee and left leg, respectively, last season and didn’t play in both ends of back-to-backs. Houston won’t have a back-to-back this season until the first week of December and it’s unclear whether or not Adams and Eason will get the go-ahead to suit up for both of those games.

With Finney-Smith sidelined for now, Eason will receive consideration for a spot in the starting lineup this fall, according to Udoka.

“We’ll see,” Udoka said. “Good to have athletic wing defenders that’ll do a lot of things that he does, especially with Dillon (Brooks) being gone, but still to be determined, and we’ll see what works well. It’s not just about starting with me, as you know. It’s about what fits best, as far as our group. He wants to push for that. We want him to as well. And we’ll see if he gets it.”

Udoka has spoken this week about experimenting with different types of lineups, per William Guillory of The Athletic, noting that he could try out a unit featuring Kevin Durant, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Sengun, and Adams that would “probably be one of the biggest in the history of the league.”

We have more from around the Southwest:

Jordan Poole was the headliner of the Pelicans‘ offseason trade with Washington, but the team also added veteran forward Saddiq Bey in that deal. Jim Eichenhofer of Pelicans.com explores what Bey, who is returning from an ACL injury that cost him the entire 2024/25 season, can bring to New Orleans, noting that he’s earning praise from his teammates and his new head coach in camp. “He’s sort of that Swiss Army Knife type of player,” Willie Green said. “He can play multiple positions, score, post up, defend, rebound. Those guys are extremely valuable to a team’s success.”
The Spurs were one of the NBA’s worst rebounding teams and put up poor defensive numbers when Victor Wembanyama wasn’t on the court last season. They’re optimistic that the offseason additions of centers Luke Kornet and Kelly Olynyk will help address those issues, as Jeff McDonald of The San Antonio Express-News writes (subscription required). “We wanted to be able to have that roster versatility to play a bunch of different ways and also protect the paint when Vic’s not on the floor,” general manager Brian Wright said. “I think those guys allow us to do that.”
After recovering from a blood clot and spending time traveling in China and Japan this offseason, Wembanyama embarked upon a training regimen he described as “brutal,” explaining that he wanted to “get my body back,” according to Jared Weiss of The Athletic. “I can assure you, nobody has trained like I did this summer,” the Spurs star said. “And this is my best summer so far. I can tell the progress is just incredible. I feel better, I look stronger and the scale says I’m heavier. So everything is a green light.”
With Grizzlies big men Jaren Jackson Jr., Zach Edey, and Brandon Clarke all likely unavailable to open the 2025/26 season, new two-way addition Olivier-Maxence Prosper is among the players making a strong case for a rotation role in the frontcourt during camp, head coach Tuomas Iisalo said this week, per Michael Wallace of Grind City Media (Twitter link).

Joe Dumars Unfazed By Criticism Of Controversial Moves

July 15th, 2025 at 9:42pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Pelicans’ new executive VP of basketball operations Joe Dumars has already made a number of eye-opening moves. He gave up CJ McCollum in a trade with the Wizards that brought Jordan Poole to New Orleans. He also traded up in the draft, giving up an unprotected 2026 pick in the process, to nab Maryland big man Derik Queen at the No. 13 spot.

Dumars took heat for those decisions, especially the latter. He told ESPN’s Marc J. Spears in an Andscape interview he doesn’t care about the backlash.

“I don’t mind the criticism. People say they don’t mind. But I really don’t mind,” Dumars said. “When you’re running a franchise, you make a determination of what you think you need to start growing your franchise. The opportunity presented itself that we could get two lottery picks, and to do that, you’re going to have to give up something. We gave up what we thought it would take to get these two lottery picks and we did.”

Dumars chose to return to his home state and take on the task of running a Pelicans franchise stuck in mediocrity. Dumars declined the vice president of basketball operations jobs with the Kings and Suns, according to Spears, but felt the New Orleans offer was “right place, right time, right people.”

Dumars addressed a wide range of topics in the interview. Here’s some of the highlights:

On the Poole acquisition:

“If you look around the league now, it’s almost a requirement to have high-level guard play, dynamic guard play. Jordan has a skillset that matches the most dynamic guards in this league. We’ve also seen him be a part of a championship team and contribute at a high level. So, with his skill set, he’s a dynamic guard and I know we have proof that he’s helped teams win championships.”

On how he approached the roster after taking the job:

“I felt the core guys like Zion (Williamson), Trey Murphy, Herb Jones and Dejounte Murray, I thought that was a really good group of guys all around the age of 25 years old. I looked at it from there and said, ‘OK, we need to build out and how do we complement each other?’ I thought the core was really good there and I thought if you have a good core, let’s build out around that core with the type of players that we need.

“And I thought Jordan Poole was a dynamic guard. I thought that Saddiq Bey was the perfect guy to come off the bench and add depth to your team. I thought that (free agent acquisition Kevon) Looney was the perfect guy for a team full of guys who were 25, 26 years old.”

On his relationship with Williamson:

“He and I have had some incredible conversations. We are in constant contact with each other. I’ve talked to him about the responsibility of being great and the responsibility of being a leader, of being a captain, of being the best player, of being the face of a franchise. I’ve talked to him about how all of those things come with responsibility and how it’s time now at 25 years old to embrace those responsibilities.”

On why he left his job with the league office to become a team executive again:

“I loved my job at the NBA. I didn’t like it. I loved it. And I always said it would have to take something special for me to leave, otherwise I wouldn’t. And so, this was what I considered special to be able to come back, run the Pelicans in New Orleans with quite frankly a lot of people I knew in the organization and outside the organization. That’s what made it special for me to say that I would leave the NBA and take this job because I really enjoyed working at the league office.”

Wizards, Pelicans, Rockets Compete Three-Team Trade

July 6th, 2025 at 1:57pm CST by Luke Adams

As expected, the Wizards have rolled a pair of trade agreements with the Pelicans and Rockets into the same deal, officially completing the two deals as a single three-team transaction, per a press release from New Orleans.

The terms of the trade are as follows:

Wizards acquire CJ McCollum, Kelly Olynyk, Cam Whitmore, and the Bulls’ 2027 second-round pick (from Pelicans).
Pelicans acquire Jordan Poole, Saddiq Bey, and the draft rights to Micah Peavy (No. 40 pick).
Rockets acquire the draft rights to Mojave King, the Bulls’ 2026 second-round pick (from Wizards) and the Kings’ 2029 second-round pick (from Wizards).

The original trade agreement between Washington and New Orleans was reached on June 24, a day before the first round of the draft, with the Whitmore deal between Houston and Washington just agreed upon yesterday.

It was beneficial for the Wizards to combine the two deals into a single trade because they were sending out any matching salary to the Rockets for Whitmore. While they could have used one of several cap exceptions they had on hand to take on Whitmore’s $3.54MM salary for 2025/26, including him in this deal allows them to use their 125% allowance for Poole’s and Bey’s outgoing salary to acquire him, McCollum, and Olynyk.

The only new part of this deal is the Rockets acquiring the draft rights to King from New Orleans, which was necessary to ensure that Houston and New Orleans were “touching” as part of the three-team deal.

You can read our original story on the Wizards/Pelicans deal headlined by McCollum and Poole here, while our report on the Wizards’ deal for Whitmore is here.

Pelicans Trading McCollum, Olynyk To Wizards For Poole, Bey

June 24th, 2025 at 2:15pm CST by Luke Adams

The Pelicans and Wizards have agreed to a four-player trade, according to Shams Charania of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that guard CJ McCollum, forward/center Kelly Olynyk, and a future second-round pick are headed to Washington in exchange for guard Jordan Poole, forward Saddiq Bey, and the No. 40 overall pick in this year’s draft.

Both McCollum ($30.7MM) and Olynyk ($13.4MM) will be on expiring contracts in 2025/26, so this move will significantly increase the Wizards’ projected 2026 cap room. They were already going to have a lot of money coming off their books next summer, with Khris Middleton ($33.3MM), Marcus Smart ($21.6MM), and potentially Richaun Holmes ($13.3MM; mostly non-guaranteed) also on expiring deals.

Corey Kispert‘s $14MM is now the only fully guaranteed salary on Washington’s cap for 2026/27, though a handful of players on rookie scale contracts will join him once the Wizards officially pick up their ’26/27 options later this year. The team currently projects to have more than $80MM in cap room next summer, per Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron (Twitter link), and possibly up to $100MM, according to Charania.

In addition to generating future cap flexibility, the Wizards will add a pair of respected veterans who are still playing pretty good basketball.

While McCollum is an undersized shooting guard who isn’t a great defender, he put up 21.1 points and 4.1 assists per game this past season on .444/.373/.717 shooting in 56 contests (all starts). Olynyk, who was traded from Toronto to New Orleans in February, battled injuries that limited him to 44 appearances, but posted respectable averages of 8.7 PPG, 4.7 RPG, and 2.9 APG in 20.3 MPG and made 41.8% of his three-point tries.

Although neither player has substantial trade value, both should be movable later this offseason or during the season if the Wizards aren’t committed to keeping them for the entire 2025/26 campaign.

According to Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link), the second-round pick going to Washington in the deal is Chicago’s 2027 second-rounder. The Wizards were actually already going to receive that pick if it were to land in the top 50, but now they’ll get it no matter where it ends up, rather than the Pelicans receiving it if it’s between 51 and 60.

As for the Pelicans, they’re sacrificing some 2026 cap flexibility in the trade, but will move a little further below next season’s luxury tax line and get younger by acquiring Poole and Bey.

Poole, who turned 26 last Thursday, had a strong bounce-back year in D.C. in 2024/25 after a shaky first season with the Wizards. He averaged 20.5 points, 4.5 assists, and 3.0 rebounds in 29.4 minutes per game, with a shooting line of .432/.378/.883.

Like McCollum, Poole isn’t exactly a lock-down defender, but the former Warrior been pretty effective with the ball in his hands and should help New Orleans replace some of the play-making the team lost when Dejounte Murray tore his Achilles midway through the ’24/25 season — Murray’s recovery process is expected to extend into next season.

Poole is owed roughly $65.9MM over the next two years, with $4.25MM in annual incentives ($8.5MM in total) that count toward the tax apron, but not the cap. Bey has two seasons and $12.6MM left on his contract, with $333K in unlikely incentives each year.

Acquiring the duo in exchange for McCollum and Olynyk will reduce New Orleans’ team salary by about $6MM for cap/tax purposes, giving the club some extra breathing room to make additional moves.

Bey showed some real promise as a three-and-D wing in Detroit and Atlanta earlier in his career, but struggled with his outside shot for the Hawks in 2023/24 and tore his ACL near the end of that season, which cost him the entire ’24/25 campaign. He’ll be looking to make his comeback to the court this fall at age 26.

The trade is the second one the Pelicans have made within the last week to add 2025 draft capital. The club previously acquired a first-round pick from the Pacers in exchange for a 2026 first-rounder and now has the seventh, 23rd, and 40th overall picks entering this week’s draft.

The deal won’t become official until July due to Washington’s position relative to the first tax apron, notes ESPN’s Bobby Marks (via Twitter). That means there’s still a possibility it could expand to include more teams and pieces before it’s finalized.

If it’s completed as currently constructed, the Wizards would be hard-capped at the first apron for the 2025/26 season as a result of taking back more salary than they send out.

Wizards Notes: Sarr, Middleton, Bey, Johnson

April 12th, 2025 at 7:43pm CST by Arthur Hill

Wizards center Alex Sarr frequently displays the defensive potential that made him the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft, but he still has room to grow, writes Varun Shankar of The Washington Post. Sarr is tied for sixth in the league with 1.5 blocked shots per game, although some of his underlying numbers put him far behind the league’s top rim protectors.

Shankar notes that entering Friday’s game, Sarr was allowing opponents to shoot 64.9% on shots inside of six feet, which is third highest in the league among players who have appeared in at least 30 games and faced at least six such shots per game. Opponents are shooting 3.3 points worse than normal when he’s the primary defender in those situations.

By comparison, Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren leads in that category at 18.3 points worse, while Memphis’s Jaren Jackson Jr. is minus-14.2 and Evan Mobley is minus-8.7. Shankar acknowledges that they’re more established than Sarr, but he points out that their numbers were also better than his in their respective rookie seasons.

“Getting stronger, working on my body, all of this is going to improve,” Sarr said. “I think I’ll come back even better (as) a rim protector.”

There’s more on the Wizards:

Veteran swingman Khris Middleton has been declared out for Sunday at Miami, which will be his ninth straight missed game. Coach Brian Keefe told reporters on Friday that Middleton was likely done for the season due to a right knee contusion, Shankar adds. He appeared in 14 games after being acquired from Milwaukee at the trade deadline and holds a $34MM player option for next season.
Saddiq Bey has also been officially ruled out for Sunday, which means he’ll complete his first season with the Wizards without any game action, Shankar tweets. Bey, who’s recovering from an ACL tear he suffered in March of 2024 while with Atlanta, signed a three-year, $20MM contract in free agency last summer. He began practicing with Washington’s G League affiliate last month.
AJ Johnson has been spectacular at times in his first opportunity at regular NBA minutes, Shankar states in a separate story. The rookie shooting guard, who came to Washington in the same deal as Middleton, is averaging 8.9 points per game since the trade but is connecting at just 38.2% from the field and 23.8% from three-point range. He only got into seven games with the Bucks before the deal. “The more I play, I just feel like I’m getting better and better and understanding more,” Johnson said. “I’m just excited to keep playing.” Shankar also traces Johnson’s unconventional road to the NBA, which included time at four high schools and a season in Australia’s National Basketball League.

Wizards’ Saddiq Bey To Practice With G League Affiliate

March 21st, 2025 at 9:06am CST by Rory Maher

Forward Saddiq Bey has been out of action since March 10, 2024, when he tore the ACL in his left knee as a member of the Hawks. As a free agent last July, the 25-year-old signed a three-year, $20MM ($1MM in incentives) contract with the Wizards.

A little more than a year after his initial injury, Bey appears to be nearing his 2024/25 season debut. Sources tell Josh Robbins of The Athletic that Bey will practice with the Capital City Go-Go — the Wizards’ NBA G League affiliate — on Friday and Saturday (Twitter link).

According to Robbins, Washington’s goal is for Bey to play in some NBA games in April. The Wizards have a total of seven games on their schedule next month, including one on April 13, the final day of the regular season.

While the Wizards will likely bring the former first-round pick along slowly in the final stages of his recovery from a major injury, the fact that he’s progressed to this point is a good sign for his availability for next season. In 63 games with Atlanta in ’23/24, Bey averaged 13.7 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 32.7 minutes per contest, with a shooting slash line of .416/.316/.837.

At 15-53, the Wizards currently have the worst record in the NBA. If that stands for the remainder of the season, they will pick no worse than No. 5 overall in the 2025 draft.

Eastern Notes: Okoro, Council, Bey, Ball

August 25th, 2024 at 7:16pm CST by Dana Gauruder

There’s been very little movement in negotiations between the Cavaliers and the only restricted free agent left on the market, Isaac Okoro, Brian Windhorst reported during NBA on ESPN’s The Hoop Collective (video link). The Cavaliers hold the upper hand, since no team except the Pistons is in a position cap-wise to make a competitive offer to Okoro.

“I think there’s only been a little bit of talking back and forth,” Windhorst said. “I’m sure it will increase as we get closer to camp. But the Cavs are realizing that all the money is spent out there. Okoro has the option of taking his qualifying offer. I am told the Cavs made a multiyear offer, whatever that’s worth.”

Okoro’s qualifying offer is worth a little over $11.8MM.

We have more from the Eastern Conference:

Ricky Council IV brings diverse skills to the table and Paul Hudrick of Liberty Ballers argues that he should be part of the Sixers’ rotation once again during the upcoming season. Council just needs to become a respectable three-point shooter to earn playing time on one of the Eastern Conference’s premier teams, Hudrick adds.
Forward Saddiq Bey signed a three-year contract with the Wizards this summer as a free agent despite suffering a torn ACL in March. Chase Hughes of Monumental Sports Network breaks down Bey’s skill set using analytics.
Lonzo Ball continues to defy the odds in his latest attempt to come back from knee surgery, according to Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times. Ball was recently cleared to start full-contact scrimmages and has started that process on schedule with no setbacks, Cowley reports. The veteran point guard has been participating in scrimmages in Los Angeles. The next step for Ball will be to run with his Bulls teammates at the team’s practice facility, which will allow Chicago’s medical staff to evaluate him and devise a plan for him heading into the preseason.

Eastern Notes: Bickerstaff, Allen, Travers, Bey, Sixers

July 12th, 2024 at 4:04pm CST by Rory Maher

It didn’t take long for J.B. Bickerstaff to find a new job after being fired by Cleveland, having been hired by the Pistons as their new head coach. At his introductory press conference on Wednesday, Bickerstaff discussed why he found Detroit’s vacancy appealing, per James L. Edwards III of The Athletic.

“It was my conversations with (president of basketball operations) Trajan (Langdon), to begin with,” Bickerstaff said. “I had a great feeling that this organization was heading in the right direction and was being led by the right people. For me, going through some of the things that I’ve gone through in the past, the people that you work with … being of a shared vision and willingness to commit to one another and partner with one another, I thought this group, as a whole, had a great vision. (team owner) Tom (Gores) has given every resource to go out and execute that vision.

“Then, obviously, you study the team. I took a deep dive as soon as I could. Obviously, I have experience of playing against them four times a year for so many years, but I knew the players well. I believed in their ability and talent. There is a steps process that we have to take, and we’re really aware of that and Trajan and I are united in that. It just doesn’t happen for everyone overnight.”

Bickerstaff pointed to his success with Cleveland as proof that he can turn the Pistons around, writes Larry Lage of The Associated Press. Detroit finished with the worst record in the NBA last season. Langdon said he was looking for a veteran coach to lead a young team, as Lage relays.

“You want somebody who can come in here and hit the ground running, and who’s done this before,” Langdon said. “Especially with a young team coming off a difficult season, positivity was important. We felt experience was important. The players needed to feel like the person coming in here knew what he was talking about.”

Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

The Cavaliers have been receiving trade inquiries on former All-Star center Jarrett Allen, but they continue to rebuff those overtures, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said on his Hoop Collective podcast (YouTube link). Allen, who averaged 16.5 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 2.7 APG and 1.1 BPG in 77 games last season (31.7 MPG), will earn $40MM over the next two seasons.
Australian wing Luke Travers, a second-round pick (No. 56) by the Cavaliers in 2022, is dealing with a sore hamstring that sidelined him for the team’s Summer League opener in Las Vegas on Friday, tweets Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. Travers has expressed a strong desire to come stateside in 2024/25, though it’s unclear if he’ll be able to earn a roster spot.
New Wizards forward Saddiq Bey will earn $6,440,678 in 2024/25, $6,118,644 in ’25/26, and $6,440,678 again in ’26/27, a source tells cap expert Yossi Gozlan (Twitter link). Bey will likely miss most — if not all — of his first season with Washington after tearing his ACL in March. The 25-year-old’s new three-year deal also includes $1MM in incentives.
Mike Sielski of The Philadelphia Inquirer argues that free agent signee Caleb Martin will bring a much-need infusion of “Heat Culture” to the Sixers, pointing to the 28-year-old’s success with Miami as evidence. According to Sielski, the 76ers have had plenty of talent in recent years, but the team has often lacked an identity, which Martin should help fortify with his willingness to make winning energy plays.
Former NBA forward Demetris Nichols has joined the Sixers as a player development coach, per Mike Waters of Syracuse.com (subscriber link). The No. 53 pick of the 2007 draft, Nichols appeared in 18 NBA games with Cleveland, Chicago and New York before spending several years overseas. The 39-year-old was an assistant with Wake Forest last season, Waters notes.

Wizards Sign Saddiq Bey To Three-Year Deal

July 12th, 2024 at 5:55am CST by Luke Adams

JULY 12: The Wizards have officially signed Bey, according to the NBA’s transaction log.

The three-year deal includes $19MM in guaranteed money, with another $1MM in incentives, tweets Josh Robbins of The Athletic.

JULY 10: The Wizards and free agent forward Saddiq Bey have reached an agreement on a three-year, $20MM deal, agents James Dunleavy and Jordan Gertler tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

Bey, who began his NBA career with the Pistons, was traded to Atlanta at the 2023 deadline and spent the past season-and-a-half with the Hawks. In 2023/24, he appeared in 63 games for the club, starting 51. He averaged 13.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 1.5 assists in 32.7 minutes per game on .416/.316/.837 shooting before a torn ACL ended his season in March.

That ACL tear complicated Bey’s free agency this summer. Despite his up-and-down season prior to the injury, a healthy version of the 25-year-old would almost certainly have received his $8.49MM qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent.

However, because Bey could spend most – or all – of the 2024/25 season recovering from ACL surgery, it would have been a risk for Atlanta to put that qualifying offer on the table. The 6’7″ forward could have accepted it, earned $8.49MM while recovering for most of the year, then signed elsewhere as an unrestricted free agent next summer. As a result, the team opted not to issue that QO, making him a UFA this offseason.

While the Hawks and Bey reportedly continued talking after they passed on his qualifying offer, the team is facing a bit of a roster crunch, leaving the former Villanova standout as an odd man out.

Washington, Bey’s hometown team, is going through a significant rebuilding process and won’t need contributions from him right away, making it an ideal fit. If Bey is healthy and productive in the second and third years of the contract, it’ll be a worthwhile investment for the Wizards, who project to be among the NBA’s worst teams in 2024/25 with or without him.

According to Josh Robbins of The Athletic (Twitter link), the Wizards view the former first-round pick as a “tough, hard-nosed culture guy” who will be a good addition to the locker room next season and will help on the court once he gets healthy. Bey’s contract won’t include a team or player option, Robbins adds (via Twitter).

The Wizards still have their entire mid-level exception available after using a trade exception to add Jonas Valanciunas on a three-year, $30MM+ contract via sign-and-trade, so it looks like they’ll use a portion of that MLE to sign Bey. Once the deal is complete, Washington will have 14 players on guaranteed contracts, with two more (Eugene Omoruyi and Jared Butler) on non-guaranteed salaries.

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