Woj: Wizards looking at wings, including Bogdanovic

In a pre-deadline discussion with Chris Mannix, Adrian Wojnarowski hinted that the Wizards are interested in a “wing player” to improve their bench and specifically mentioned Bojan Bogdanovic as a player they could target.

He also suggested that Washington may be willing to give up a first round pick, even this year, to get it done.

“Washington feels it's a top heavy team,” Woj told Mannix. “They rely a lot on their starters. John Wall, Bradley Beal, certainly those two. Otto Porter has had a really good year for them.

“They got to improve their bench. They feel that if there's a wing player that they can get out in the trade market, Lou Williams with the Lakers they have interest in, Bojan Bogdanovic with the Nets. Washington has shown the inclination to give up a future draft pick, potentially even in this draft to get a veteran who may even turn out to be a rental for them. They see an opportunity here. This team has played really well. “

The Wizards currently have the No. 24 pick in the 2016 Draft, the Nets the No. 26 as part of the swap with the Celtics.

As for Brook Lopez, Woj noted that there are a number of teams with traditional bigs —Lopez being “the most accomplished”-- but shouldn’t expect to get a big return.

“They're just aren't a lot of teams out there looking for a traditional back-to-the-basket center. all of those (selling) teams are seeing a pretty limited market for any of those big men so you may see one of those big men, maybe two, but I don't see all those teams who want to get off their centers are going to see enough buyers out there to make deals.”

Woj was the second member of The Vertical to discuss a possible Bogdanovic trade. Bobby Marks in the Glue Guys podcast this week said of Bogdanovic...

“Bojan is interesting. He's an older third year player. He's got an expiring but players who are restricted free agents, you kind of put an asterisk next to them. The team has a right to match anything. He certainly has appeal.”

He also said a salary dump with Portland could work in the Nets favor. In a trade that Marc Stein said was a possibility, the Nets would take on Festus Ezeli’s contract, which is $7.4 million this season and has a $1 million guarantee on a $7.7 million deal next.

“Ezeli's a good name. He's owed a million next year,” Bobby Marks. “You'd hit the floor (this year) or come real close to the floor. This year' you'd owe him basically a couple of million dollars.”

Generally, the former Nets assistant GM said the Nets strategy has to be “singles and doubles,” rather than home runs.

“That's the mindset you have to go and what Sean and the group, when you get into the next week here ... If you're Brooklyn, you can take a little more advantage of players that have multiple years left on their contract that maybe a team is looking to shed money to try to be a player, knowing that that's your free agent for the summer and you don't have to play a waiting game.”

Without saying the Nets should go after him, Bobby Marks mentioned Brandon Knight as an example. Both he and Woj said the Suns are marketing Knight, who is only 25 and has some skills but coming off the bench now in Arizona. He’s owed $43.8 million over three after this year.

“Everyone gets in trouble when you're trying to knock it out of the park and you're trying to hit a home run deals,” said Bobby Marks. “When you get to the deadline, you've got to look for these under the radar type players here.”