{"id":741875,"date":"2026-07-04T00:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T00:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741875\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T00:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T00:51:16","slug":"another-dawkins-bargain-wizards-land-deandre-ayton-for-next-to-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741875\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Dawkins bargain: Wizards land DeAndre Ayton for next to nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wizards shored up their center position for next season by acquiring DeAndre Ayton from the Los Angeles Lakers. It\u2019s yet another trademark Will Dawkins trade \u2014 the price for Ayton was a guard they didn\u2019t want and a couple second round picks. Add this move to a list that include paying nothing the team wanted to obtain Trae Young from the Atlanta Hawks, and paying a modest price for Anthony Davis.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Wizards made a smart move in trading for big man DeAndre Ayton. Getty Images<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a franchise-altering move, but it\u2019s a smart one nonetheless. While multiple teams have given up on Ayton, including the Lakers, who just paid a heavy price to acquire Ayton\u2019s replacement, he\u2019s not a bad player, and he will upgrade Washington\u2019s backup center spot next season.<\/p>\n

Last season, Ayton\u2019s individual production was solidly above average (144 PPA \u2014 in PPA, 100 is average and higher is better), though the Lakers were only \u201cabout the same\u201d on both ends when he was in the game. That goes for regular season and playoffs.<\/p>\n

After spending heavily to acquire Walker Kessler, the Lakers needed to offload Ayton\u2019s relatively modest $8.1 million salary to create financial flexibility for other moves, and get back some future draft resources. That they dealt him for a player they don\u2019t want and a couple second round picks is a bit of an indictment of the former No. 1 overall pick \u2014 a guy selected ahead of players like Luka Doncic, Trae Young, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n

Still, a guy one team doesn\u2019t want can still have value to another. For Washington, Ayton checks a few boxes. At full health, he\u2019ll be the primary backup center \u2014 slotting into a three-big F\/C rotation with Alex Sarr and Davis. With Ayton in the fold, Davis won\u2019t have to spend much time as the titular center. Figure the team will start and finish halves with Davis and Sarr up front and play combinations of the three in between.<\/p>\n

Ayton also provides some injury insurance in the likely event that Davis or Sarr gets hurt. Both have injury histories. Sarr is currently recovering from a broken foot suffered during an offseason workout. Both are expected to be ready for training camp, but it\u2019s still wise to have some coverage.<\/p>\n

Ayton also provides some flexibility in case Dawkins and Michael Winger change their minds and agree to trade Davis to Golden State or elsewhere. Ayton is no long-term answer in the middle, but neither is Davis. With Ayton, the issues are quality and attitude \u2014 he\u2019s not The Guy and hasn\u2019t exhibited the willingness to do the work necessary to be The Guy.<\/p>\n

With Davis, the issues are age, health, and expense. When healthy, he\u2019s been terrific.<\/p>\n

The move will give Washington an $8.1 million trade \u201cexception\u201d in the form of Ayton\u2019s expiring contract. They\u2019ll also create a $6 million exception because, as suggested by ESPN\u2019s Bobby Marks, they\u2019ll use their existing trade exception for Kelly Olynyk to bring in Ayton \u2014 which was set to expire July 9 if they didn\u2019t use it.<\/p>\n

Again, nothing about this transaction significantly alters the franchise\u2019s trajectory. Ayton improves their reserve center spot and gives them some flexibility. He\u2019s a temporary solution that fits a current need, and it didn\u2019t cost future assets with significant value. That\u2019s solid work from the front office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wizards shored up their center position for next season by acquiring DeAndre Ayton from the Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,63905],"class_list":["post-741875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards-statistical-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}