The Hornets Should Prioritize Re-Signing P.J. Washington

According to Jake Fischer of Yahoo! Sports, the Charlotte Hornets would prefer to engage in sign-and-trade scenarios involving forward, and restricted free agent, P.J. Washington out of fear that Washington picks up his qualifying offer, and leaves the organization outright in 2024 as an unrestricted free agent.On the surface, that’s a perfectly reasonable reaction. Losing Washington for nothing in a year is a drastically worse outcome than pivoting off the forward now, and at least receiving some return for the 24-year-old.

Washington, who averaged 15.7 points and 4.9 rebounds last season, hasn’t received a lot of external interest from teams this summer, presumably due to salary demands that are no longer realistic, given how money have dried up in free agency over the past two weeks.

The one-year qualifying offer that Washington can pick up is worth $8.5 million, a much lower amount than what he’s seeking on the open market, but it does afford him the chance to choose his own destination next summer – without Charlotte having the right to match.

Coincidentally, the Hornets already find themselves in a similar situation with Miles Bridges, who picked up his own qualifying offer worth $7.9 million, meaning he’ll be free to sign with anyone a little under a year from now.

As such, the Hornets could be looking at losing two starting caliber forwards next summer. While Bridges’ situation differs greatly from that of Washington – Bridges didn’t play at all last season due to a case of domestic violence right before the start of the year – the Hornets will ultimately be short on talent if they enter the 2024 summer with neither of them on the roster.

While Bridges’ situation might prove to make him generally undesirable for most teams, losing Washington on top of it would add some significant pressure to the Hornets of finding talent, and quickly. Star point guard LaMelo Ball is already three seasons deep, and while he just signed a rookie extension worth upwards of $260 million, NBA stars historically don’t have a lot of patience with their teams, if they continuously find themselves in the lower half of the standings.

Perhaps, then, an even wiser decision than engaging teams in sign-and-trade scenarios, is to keep Washington around on a long-term deal, even if they deem the price tag a bit high.

Washington has sought a deal in the range of $80 million over four years, which averages out to $20 million per season. If the Hornets and Washington could find common ground in the $16-17 million area, that deal would age well, particularly with the cap expected to increase by 10% in coming years. In time, Washington’s contract would be similar in value to the league’s Non-Tax MLE, which would be a fair deal for a 6’7 two-way forward who can help stretch the floor, and defend reliably.

Furthermore, re-signing Washington sends a message to Ball that Charlotte is serious about building something sustainable around the star, which is a strong – if not necessary – signal to send in today’s game where star movement is as active as it is.

Unless noted otherwise, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball-Reference. All salary information via Spotrac. All odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.