NBA Rumors: Wizards Must Dump Rashard Lewis and Andray Blatche Before Draft

The Washington Wizards have a great chance to turn their franchise around and start earnestly rebuilding this summer.

To truly revitalize the roster, the Wizards have to use the month between the drawing and the actual event to ditch some terrible salaries and awful players—namely Andray Blatche and Rashard Lewis.

These two men have been woefully underperforming during their time in the nation’s capital and make far too much money for what little they do contribute.

According to a report by Michael Lee of The Washington Post, the team has the option to buy out their contracts or use the one-time amnesty provision, but insider sources believe they are going to look and see if they can find someone to dump them off on via a trade.

With Lewis set to make over $22 million next season—the second highest-paid player in the league—it will be extremely tough to find a team willing and able to absorb that contract.

The Wizards do have a chance to shave some salary by buying out the contract for $13.7M, but president Ernie Grunfeld is reportedly reluctant to pay players not to be on the roster.

Blatche is due $23 million over the next three years of his deal, but hasn’t come close to earning that money. The consistently out-of-shape disappointment is the likely target of any amnesty use in D.C.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Wizards decide to do in the draft, but one thing is for certain, they need to get rid of Blatche and Lewis in order to move forward.