I wouldn’t send off to Amazon to get that Malcolm Brogdon-Washington Wizards jersey just yet.
Brogdon was traded to the Wiz after a season in Portland, where he was sent after a season in Boston, which got him when Indiana decided to undertake its latest rebuild.
Indiana was the franchise that made Brogdon a very, very wealthy man, signing him to a four-year, $85 million deal in 2019 to get him away from Milwaukee.
Brogdon is now on the back end of a two-year, $45 million extension, which makes him, in the modern-day economics of the NBA, a relatively economical veteran trade target.
That’s no doubt why you’ve seen him moved around as a trade piece the past couple of offseasons, and it’s why I expect Brogdon to be moved again, possibly before the start of the 2024-2025 NBA season in October, certainly by the February trade deadline.
Brogdon has not played more than the 75 games and 1,982 minutes that he logged in Milwaukee in his Rookie of the Year campaign back in 2016-2017.
He’s only played in more than 60 games twice in the seven seasons since, and went just 39 games for the Blazers last season.
Brogdon, when he’s on the floor, still puts up good numbers – he averaged 15.7 points and 5.5 assists with Portland in 2023-2024, shooting 44.0 percent from the field and 41.2 percent from three.
Going into his age-32 season, he’s probably a better fit for a playoff team looking for punch off the bench, along the lines of the role that he played for the Celtics in 2022-2023, than he is as the old guy on a young team, which would be what he would be for Washington, which is perennially in rebuild.
But before a contender will be willing to pull the trigger, he’s probably going to have to get through the first couple months of the season, at least, without missing significant time.
This was the gamble that the Wiz front office made in trading for Brogdon. The hope was that they could get him, give him the ability to put up some numbers, then flip him for draft picks after the first of the year.
In the short term, UVA Basketball fans will get to enjoy seeing Brogdon reunite for a short time with Anthony Gill, his teammate from those really good 2013-2016 Tony Bennett teams.
For all the love that we have for Bennett, and rightfully so, Brogdon and Gill don’t get enough credit for their part in the turnaround that got Virginia Basketball to the 2019 national title.
We might get a nice moment or two from those guys up in DC before the business part of the NBA does what it does.
Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, TikTok, BlueSky, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].
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