If Washington is finally rebuilding, where does Porziņģis end up?

Purely on the level of production when healthy, Kristaps Porziņģis is arguably the third-best available free agent this offseason, behind Harden and Kyrie, who are starting to look like odds-on favorites to simply return to their current teams. You have to assume that with the departure of Beal, Washington no longer plans to pony up and sign him to a big contract, so it's highly likely he will play for another team this upcoming season, coming off his career-best year wherein he scored 23 points with 8 rebounds off of 50/39/85 shooting splits.

If that's true, he may be the best player to actually move to a different team via free agency this year, strange as that is.

If he can manage to stay healthy, he could make a major impact on a contender, or he could look to get paid and help turn around the fortunes of a lower-end team. Aside from the Rockets, here are teams with enough cap space to potentially offer him a payday he's looking for, which is likely around $35M per season (or more):

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San Antonio Spurs - $39M - $47M. There is a lot of overlap with Wemby, but maybe it would work since Wemby wants to play the 4 and Kristaps is basically just a center now. I have my doubts that they're focused on having a dramatic turn-around right away though, since reports have them more focused on adding another prospect in this draft class.

Utah Jazz - $30M - $45M. Probably not a great fit since they already have Walker Kessler and Kelly Olynk under contract, but you never know, they could view him as an upgrade and seek to trade one or both of those guys to fill a different need.

Oklahoma City Thunder - $28M - $35M. This is the team to watch in free agency in my view, since they're trying to take the next step into contender status. Question is, does Kristaps want to go from DC, a city with great amenities, to Oklahoma? OKC does also have Chet coming back, but a platoon with Porzingis could make a lot of sense given both players' injury concerns and the uncertainty around Chet's ultimate production level.

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The other possibility could be a sign-and-trade, but I do wonder if any team is going to offer a good enough package to make it worthwhile for Washington, given the payday he's likely to receive. Lastly, some team could look to clear out some contracts (Portland, for example) to make space to add him via free agency.

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Where do you think he'll ultimately end up, and will he stay healthy enough for it to even matter?

 

Seems unlikely, right? Some team's got to be willing to pay him at least $90M over 3, if not more. That's a lot of money to risk leaving on the table. Even if he really likes it in Washington, I would assume they'd just trade him at the deadline if I were him.

 

Maybe if we get in there and take Tyus Jones and Steven Adams off their hands?