As a general note, posting is going to be a bit light today and tomorrow because I have Finals, and I imagine Jake does as well (though I might be wrong about that). Each day, I'll try to come up with a question for discussion to mitigate the lack of heavy posting.
Today's question is as follows.
Considering our salary-cap situation, our best chance to get someone in free agency would be to use our mid-level exception, which amount to somewhere between 5-6 million dollars annually. I haven't crunched our salary number to know exactly how much of that we have to spend this year, so let's assume we can use it all.
Now, assume every player on every other team in the league would suddenly become a free agent, allowing us theoretically to sign anyone we wanted with that money. Obviously, most of the best players in the league would never sign for that little, so we can throw those players out of the discussion. Of the players in the league who either make mid-level money or less, or who would conceivably be worth mid-level money next year (because they're getting older, or they're improving from being a fringe player), who would help the Wizards the most?
For the purpose of this exercise, I'm asking you guys to list one player only. If you think he will sign for less than the full mid-level exception, that's fine, but list just one player.
Have at it!
[UPDATE] A couple clarifications. First, players on rookie contracts count, but again, give a compelling reason why they're worth mid-level money or less. Second, unless you note otherwise, assume that our main core (Big 3, all others under contract) would still remain. Finally, I'll post all the answers tomorrow and decide which one I personally like best.