Wizards Will Use Amnesty Clause On Andray Blatche Barring Trade

The Washington Wizards appear set to make one of the most obvious moves of this year's free agency period: The Washington Post's Michael Lee reports that, "barring a last-minute trade," the Wizards are set to exercise their amnesty clause to cut ties with Andray Blatche.

Blatche is due $23 million more on the three remaining years of a five-year, $35 million deal, and has never been the force underneath that the Wizards desperately wanted him to be. Blatche scored 16.8 points and grabbed 8.5 rebounds per game for Washington in 2010-11 as part of an alternately brilliant and benighted frontcourt with JaVale McGee, but his numbers and play fell off considerably in 2011-12, as he scored just 8.5 points per contest, shot a pitiful 38 percent from the floor, and found himself affixed to Randy Wittman's bench.

Washington will likely use the salary cap space to keep John Wall around for a few more years, and possibly to ink Bradley Beal, who the Wizards seem pretty impressed with so far.