The Washington Wizards won four of their last five games to finish the season with a .500 record, but that was not good enough to make the playoffs. The Wizards made the playoffs in each of the last two seasons and even won a series each year, but this year was a major disappointment.
As is usually the case when a team disappoints, big changes have already started to happen, and there are likely more coming. Randy Wittman is out as head coach, but the Wizards will likely also look to make changes to the roster. The Wizards will likely be active in free agency to try and improve across the board, but they have some of their own free agents that they need to worry about, too.
Bradley Beal is the main player that they need to focus on, but he is a restricted free agent and nobody really expects him to go anywhere else. Star player John Wall named three free agents that he wanted back for next year, and one of them was Jared Dudley. Dudley was acquired by the Wizards this past offseason for a future second-round pick but was in the final year of his five-year $21 million contract.
Dudley made just over $4 million this past season, but it is expected that he could make a lot more on the open market. It is unclear how much the Wizards would be willing to spend on him, but at this point, Dudley wants to maximize the amount of money he makes, so he could end up with the highest bidder. Dudley is open to coming back to the Wizards as long as Wittman was no longer the coach, which has happened, but now it will be about the offers he gets.
Because the Wizards were underwhelming all season, it was assumed that Dudley would be on the trading block. The Wizards received a lot of calls regarding a possible trade for Dudley, but they ultimately decided to hold on to him and actually ended up trading their first-round pick for Markieff Morris. The Cleveland Cavaliers were among the several teams that showed interest in Dudley at the deadline, and you can expect him to have a similar amount of suitors in free agency, which could move him out of Washington's price range.
Dudley played in all but one game this year and had himself a pretty nice season. Although he is just 6-foot-7, Dudley spent some time at center and power forward despite being a natural wing player. Still though, the 30-year-old averaged 7.9 points on 48 percent shooting from the field and 42 percent shooting from three-point range in his ninth NBA season.
