Not that it was completely unexpected, but Kristaps Porzingis is very happy with the Washington Wizards.
The Latvian is expected to decline his $36 million player option for the 2023/24 season and become a free agent. However, it was reported late last month that the Wizards were seriously discussing a new contract extension for Porzingis.
It's an extremely lucrative one too with Washington being able to offer the center a four-year, $180 million deal — representing a nine-million raise in the average annual value of the contract he was going to sign had he opted into his existing deal.
Of course, there's always a chance he could reject that extension and sign somewhere else. But as things stand, it looks very much like he will remain in Washington.
“I feel at home here,” Porzingis was quoted as saying by The Athletic's Josh Robbins. “… I love the city.”
This is certainly good news for Wizards fans for the most part. With Bradley Beal locked up for the considerable future, they will now have another key piece in Porzingis potentially locked up.
The issue, however, is this is a team that finished the 2022/23 campaign with a 35-47 record to end up as the No. 12 seed. With Beal, Porzingis and potentially Kyle Kuzma all on big contracts, it's not an ideal cap space situation for a team who didn't even make the play-in tournament.
At the same time, D.C. is currently not an attractive location for free agents and with very few avenues to improve the roster, Washington's only hope is to retain the stars that they do have and hope for improvement going forward.
Porzingis averaged 23.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists in the 65 regular season games he played in for Washington.
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