NBA Trade Rumors 2012: Wizards 'Actively Shopping' JaVale McGee, But Asking For A Lot

We knew already that the Washington Wizards were at least starting to look into the idea of trading JaVale McGee before he becomes a restricted free agent this summer. The latest NBA trade rumor, though, has much stronger wording than that. It comes from Yahoo! Sports' Marc Spears.

Wizards actively trying to trade C Javale McGee, but one GM said, "they are asking for the world," sources say.

— Marc J. Spears (@SpearsNBAYahoo) March 15, 2012

Now, let's be sure to consider the semantics of this before we continue. The phrase "actively trying" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. General managers have these kinds of discussions all the time. Also, it's worth noting that the general manager quoted probably has an interest in keeping McGee's price down, so this could be a negotiation tactic.

That said, this one's kind of interesting. On the one hand, the Wizards have a lot of leverage, because they could always match whatever contract McGee is offered. On the other hand, if McGee really is asking for something like $14 million a year, then the Wizards may just decide it's not worth the trouble. In that case, getting something for him is better than nothing.

As many of you know, I've been advocating the latter for a while now. We'll just have to see how this plays out.

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