Rumors suggest that Kelly Oubre Jr. may not have been returning to the Washington Wizards beyond this season even if he wasn't recently traded to the Phoenix Suns.
Oubre and fellow teammate Austin Rivers were to send to Phoenix in the deal that landed Trevor Ariza in Washington, and now all parties will move forward in hopes of making this deal worth it.
However, Oubre's addition in the deal has been one of the more talked about aspects of the whole thing.
But when pondering on the biggest takeaways from the deal, Fred Katz of The Athletic suggested that Oubre may not have been back with the Wizards after this year because of his restricted free agent status and the team's roster construction.
From Katz:
Rivers mightily struggled during his 29 games with the Wizards. Meanwhile, there was nearly no realistic chance Oubre was returning to D.C. after this season, according to sources.
That makes shipping him elsewhere an ideal move for the Washington front office, even with the fourth-year pro averaging 12.9 points, and 4.4 rebounds this season.
Now, the Wizards will move forward in hopes that Ariza will be the missing piece on what has been a team that has had plenty of issues through the first 29 games.
John Wall and company are 11-18 on the season while losing four straight games, and they need to turn things around rather quickly with four of their next six on the road.
The Wizards will try to snap their losing streak on Sunday afternoon when they host the Los Angeles Lakers, who were also heavily rumored to be a major player in landing Ariza.
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