Yippy, not only have we pretty much officially bowed out of the best free agent class of all time, we've helped a team in our own confence get two max players. I wonder if we just built a dynasty for Chicago?
I doubt it matters much for Chicago. Rose/Lebron won't be able to play together. If they add Bosh/Johnson, then that team is stacked, but they will be anyways. This improves the Wizards back court drastically over last year, adds the best player in the draft, keeps them from wasting time on a FA class they had no real chance in, and allows for one more very good player in a fairly deep draft. Then they can go the FA route and offer a mid level exemption to one of the big names if things get a little wacky or just go add a solid player like Rudy Gay to keep building things up.
Let's say it plays out that they take Wall. The 17th pick could easily be a legit PF like Craig Brackins or Larry Sanders and it wouldn't surprise me if a legit C like Cole Aldrich slides. That gives you the 30th pick with something like Jordan Crawford, Stanley Robinson etc. on the wing or another post player as this is considered a draft with a lot of good, but not great, bigs. There's still the 35th pick. Then there's FA where I really want to see the return of Haywood along with Rudy Gay.
Roster could look like this:
Starters--
1 John Wall
2 Gilbert Arenas
3 Rudy Gay
4 Andray Blatche
5 Brendan Haywood
Bench--
Kirk Hinrich
Nick Young
Al Thornton
Javale McGee
Pick 17
Pick 30
Pick 35
That's a huge improvement over just 2 months ago.
Oh, and that Melo guy is a FA next year. That's one we get a real chance at.