The Wizards trade Kelly Olynyk to the Spurs for Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley, & a 2nd

The Wizards trade Kelly Olynyk to the Spurs for Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley, & a 2nd

What is up, Wizards fans? Welcome into a quick uh quick little mini episode here of the Wizards podcast. I’m Matt Madno. Honestly, man, uh Joseé Andreas, move over. We’ve got a new uh top chef in the DC area, and that’s Will Dawkins. The man continues to cook right now. This is awesome. Uh another trade here. They’re just literally stockpiling everyone that could play the two through maybe four position in the NBA. It seems like that’s under 25 years old. Wizards send out Kelly Ool Linux so I don’t have to watch his dusty old bones, puli smelling self uh suit up for a team that clearly no one in the fan base wanted to see him suit up for. So that’s awesome. And in return, they get Blake Wesley and Malachi Brandom and a second round pick from the San Antonio Spurs. You know, how good ultimately the second round pick is is sort of the question here. Uh it’s the least favorable of Dallas, Philadelphia, and Oklahoma City. So, it’s probably like the 50th pick in the draft or later. And honestly, probably later than that. So, really doesn’t mean a whole lot for you other than maybe some fodder to trade in and, you know, move up a little bit or some extra throwing in some other deal. Like, does the 58th pick in the draft change that much for you? Ultimately, probably not. So, you’re really just selling out Kelly Oolen and and bringing in two more young guys. you know, yeah, they’re positionally redundant with some of the other guys they have, but there’s also some upside and they’re intriguing. And this front office has just said, “Look, we’re short on talent. We’re going to bring as many, you know, by low reclamation guys as we can and just let them all fight it out to the death, you know, Thunderdome style here and see who comes out alive at the end of the day.” And this is just awesome. And and I uh my guy Taj Wilson uh Taj Wilson already said in the chat here. Um somebody else from X I just see a Wizards logo also said the Wizards need a center badly. Tosh said we need somebody who can rebound. Uh Jay from DC said you know we we need somebody to play center. The Wizards do not want to win basketball games in the year of our Lord 2026. So they don’t care about that. The expectation is you can go out and get some cheap free agent center to fill the void here in the future if they need to do that. But for right now, they’re going to take as many wings and guards as they can load up on them and see who can be a part of the future here. And and that’s okay. Like that’s fine. Like next year they don’t want to be good. They’re doubling down on star minutes at the five. You’re probably going to see Keshan George at the four. Maybe some Ken Whitmore at the four. Things like that. Maybe even cool play some at the four. like they really don’t care about that and you’re building a you know a switchable positionless basketball team. Those guys are at least going to play one through four and you just need somebody to eat up a few minutes at the five. So Rashan Holmes is going to play some minutes there. Tristan Vukovich is probably going to play some minutes there. You might see Justin Champeni play some small ball five or you know things like that from time to time because they do not want to be good. They don’t want to lose that pick to the Knicks. They need a star in next year’s draft for all the Malachi Brandoms and Blake Wesley’s that go out and get. Again, smart move to try to buy low on some guys that that are still really young and have some upside, but you know, they they don’t have um the upside of Darren Peterson or Camboozer or AJ Debonta. Their big is probably going to be one of those guys. and and right now, not that that Darren Peterson is a big, but you know, Boozer and Debonsa probably play some four in the NBA and things like that, too. So, they’re going to go out and get these guys that play next to SAR long term, and they’re going to supplement them, you know, with with one of these other dudes. And and and this is just again, I’m all for it. For anybody not familiar with Blake Wesley, uh 6’4ish guard, came out of Notre Dame after one year as a freshman at Notre Dame. He averaged 14 and a half points, a little under four rebounds, and about two and a half assists. He didn’t really shoot the ball particularly well, and that’s why he ultimately fell to the 25th pick. Again, he came out in the 2022 draft. He shot 40% from the field at Notre Dame, 30% from three, 65% from the free throw line. Just a big athletic guard, averaged like about a steal and a half a game. Uh one to one assist to turnover ratio basically on a not great Notre Dame team. They like they were okay. Uh this is just an athletic dude that if he ever becomes a shooter, you know, I think you have to go kind of account for and look out for. Uh so again, he’s got three years of NBA experience. He’s still only 22 years old. Again, they’re taking in a bunch of guys who are if they’re able to drink, it’s barely. And uh there’s still a lot of upside left for him. Again, not really shot particularly well as an NBA player. Uh this past season for the Spurs, he played in 58 games, averaged three 3.7 points, one rebound, two assists, shot 43% from the field, 29% from three, 62% from the free throw line. All those are on relatively low volume. He just hasn’t done much as an NBA player yet. Uh his sophomore year in the league, you know, two seasons ago, he played 61 games, started three of them. That’s the best he’s done to date. So this is probably just another lowf flyier, you know, relation like in relation to like the guys are taking that he’s a relatively low upside um piece or sorry a relatively low risk medium upside player for them. So it’s just it’s fine. It’s fine to take a shot on a guy like this and he if he ever shoots it, he turns into anything and he’s a rotation piece for you. That’s a win. He probably just at the moment is competing as like a backup shooting guard with AJ Johnson for some minutes. Uh he is a guy that you could give some G-League minutes to next year and just see if he continues to compete uh and earn some spots, earn some minutes. So that’d be cool. Malachi Brandham is a guy also another sort of um you know guy with some upside left here right in in 2021 2022 at Ohio State as a freshman. He started 31 of 32 games averaged 13.7 points, 3.6 rebounds, two assists, a little under two turnovers. didn’t really do much in terms of steel blocks. The guy was basically just a bucket getter and you know a 6’5 6’6ish solid bucket getter uh is still appealing. Like at some point this team has to score some points and a lot of the guys they’ve added you know here between him and Cam Whitmore are a little more offensive oriented and and that’s probably just by looking at what the you know the rest of their roster has done so far. Like Kulabali is not particularly aggressive offensively. Sar is probably never a high usage guy, although he doesn’t shy away from shooting pretty much every time he touches the ball. I mean, not that he he never passes, but you know what I mean. Like, he’s he’s not shy about shooting it, but he’s not going to be a high usage guard. Uh, so Brandham shot 50% from the field at Ohio State and 41% from three. Was an 83% free throw shooter. So, it’s a guy everybody expected to come in and shoot pretty well in the NBA. And and he’s essentially done that. So in 47 games for the Spurs last year, he averaged five points, one rebound, just under one assist, shot 46% from the field, 40.5% from three, and 82% from the free throw line. So, you know, if you’re Malachi Brandham, you’re also 20, barely 22 years old. You know, three years of NBA experience. Again, he was the 20th pick in that same draft. Like, the Spurs is not really the guys that they need or are going to give developmental minutes to, and the Wizards can afford to do that. as a rookie. He came in and on a bad Spurs team, averaged 10 points per game, on not particularly good efficiency, but he’s gotten more efficient than he’s been in, but the usage has gone down. So, if you’re Washington, it’s another dude you could put some some G- League minutes, too. But ultimately, they’re just they’re competing and and that’s that’s okay right now. Like, we we can do that. And again, it’s stockpiling dudes and I’m all for it. I got a roll here in a minute. I would love to to take some of these questions in the chat. It’s popping right now. I’m sorry, guys. I’m on the West Coast. I’m here for work, but we’re doing like team building some stuff and some of the guys like to play some pickle ball. This is my third day in a row of West Coast pickle ball, but uh it’s not quite as exciting as staying here and talking more Wizards basketball with you guys. We will have some more content on the channel here coming up and and I’ll have those guys uh spend a little time on on Brandom and Blake Wesley, too. But just let us know in the comments what you think about the move here, what Will Dawkins is doing. Please do me a favor. Hit that like button for us. Uh it does mean a lot. Does help the show uh continue to grow. If you’re not subscribed to the channel, please do that. We got a ton of updates coming for you. A lot more fun content coming up here over the course of the summer. We’ll be covering summer league in depth. So, this is great. Uh Jean Paul mentioned in the chat we have 17 standard contracts. Yeah, I I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody here on this list ends up on a two-way in some way, shape, or form. Uh both Wesley and Brandom, if they were, you know, waved from their NBA contracts, would be eligible for two-way contracts. They have not played four years in the NBA, so therefore they’re still eligible for a two-way for one more season. So that’s fine. You could convert some guys or you could ultimately package them up and make some other move and consolidate a few of these spots here. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do that over the course of the summer. Uh you know, that’ll be interesting. Uh, but like I said, there’s more content coming on the channel about the summer league roster and things like that. And uh, we’ll keep you all posted. All right, until then, enjoy. Let’s see what else will Dawkins and company can come up with. And, uh, yeah, go Wizards. All right, peace out.

The Washington Wizards are trading Kelly Olynyk to the San Antonio Spurs for Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley and a 2026 second-round pick (least favorable of Dallas, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City), according to Shams Charania of ESPN.

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