The Wizards take advantage of LeBron Mania

Blog excerpt from washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider

Anybody else out there looking to free up some cap room to lure LeBron James? Is Miami still trying to give away Michael Beasley? Could it be that risky to take him on for one year? Maybe, but what the hay?

Teams are giving away their best players and the Wizards have been opportunistic, to say the least. They are taking advantage of teams that have visions of James wearing their No. 6 jersey while he gets booed at Verizon Center. In the meantime, the Wizards haven't made many friends in Cleveland or New York, two cities that have a lot riding on signing the two-time league MVP. Now Chicago and New Jersey have moved up the line to land LeBron, but the Wizards aren't concerned.

"I think we're concerned about our own situation," Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld said. "We made a decision that we're going to save some of our powder for the future and try to right now put a core of young players together that can grow and we can build with, and that is the reason that we do have those opportunities right now. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't be there for us."

Yi Jianlian was the latest player the Wizards were able to swindle away for next to nothing. In essence, the Wizards received a free one-season rental of Yi, using the $4.5 million exception they acquired in the Drew Gooden deal with the Los Angeles Clippers at the trade deadline. The trade exception basically ensures there are no luxury tax implications, given how hard the Wizards worked to get under them last February -- giving away Dominic McGuire, strong-arming a $1.5 million buyout from Zydrunas Ilgauskas. The Nets also took on Quinton Ross (and his $1.15 million) and gave the Wizards $3 million for the trouble.

"We've got a player who's had success in the NBA and, at the same time, is only 22 years old," Grunfeld said.

It was the second time in a week that a team paid the Wizards to take their player. The Chicago Bulls gave them $3 million to take Kirk Hinrich (and his $9 million contract) and the 17th overall pick, which turned out to be Kevin Seraphin. The Wizards are essentially paying Hinrich just $3 million since the going price for first-round picks is $3 million, which they were prepared to spend for other picks before the Bulls gave them an offer they couldn't refuse.

On the other side, you could also argue that a player can't be all that good if a team is willing to do all of that just to get rid of him. But these are desperate times for teams chasing James and, overall, the Wizards feel pretty good about what they've been able to accomplish before the free agent signing period began at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday.

Yi has averaged 9.6 points and 5.8 rebounds in his career, an undistinguished one so far after he arrived from China with so much hype. Yi was hailed as China's greatest import since Yao Ming and was supposed to represent the younger generation of Chinese basketball. When the two players met for the first time in the NBA, Yi scored 19 points with nine rebounds and Yao said that Yi would be better than him. Yao told me a few weeks later, "He's going to have a lot of success."

But now Yi is on his third team in four years. In a lot of ways, it's worth a shot, because this could be the place where it finally clicks. If not, they can move on without regret.