The Washington Wizards seem to be getting “super-ready” for next season.
Forward Antawn Jamison was snatched off the free-agent market with a four-year extension worth $50 million. Jamison traveled from North Carolina to Washington on Monday to sign the deal and told the Associated Press, “I just signed. We got it out of the way.”

Jamison was expected to draw serious interest from the Philadelphia 76ers, along with the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles Clippers — to have salary-cap room this summer to bid for top players.

A deal had to be completed before midnight or the Wizards would have been forced to wait until July 9 to re-sign Jamison, when the league’s moratorium on signings and trades is lifted. That could have also exposed Jamison to interest from other teams.

Jamison is coming off his best season as a pro and these stats can prove just that.
He averaged 21.4 points, had a career-best 10.2 rebounds in 79 games, earned a spot on the Eastern Conference All-Star team and helped the Wizards (43-39) reach the playoffs as a No. 5 seed despite injuries that limited franchise guard Gilbert Arenas to 13 games and fellow All-Star forward Caron Butler to 58 games. May I remind you that he is 32 years old! Shocking aint it?
Washington’s continuous first-round loss to Cleveland is a hurdle that has been putting an abrupt end to their season for three straight years, but the Wizards believe that they can compete with the East’s elite if the Arenas-Butler-Jamison core remains healthy and strong enough.

Let’s remember that the Wizards did post a 3-1 record last season against the eventual champions, Boston Celtics. No other team in the league beat Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Co. more than twice during the regular season.
Getting Jamison to sign also enables the Wizards to focus on re-signing Arenas, who considered pulling out of next season’s $12.8 million salary offer to become a free agent despite his one year old knee problems.

Jamison said, “He said he’d take less money if they got me, and they got me, so I think everything will get worked out with Gilbert.”
“Once he heard that I had reached a deal, he congratulated me,” said Jamison, repeating a text message conversation he had with Arenas. And I said “I can’t wait to congratulate you tomorrow.”

Arenas maintains that he intends to represent himself this summer (with all that money, we still don’t know why) as he seeks a new six-year contract in excess of $100 million. (Talk about BIG BUCKS!)

The Wizards can’t negotiate with Arenas until this Tuesday because he opted out of his contract.

Wizards team president Ernie Grunfeld expressed his happiness on re-signing Jamison who he sees to have been a leader for the team both on and off the court over the last four seasons, and is proud to have brought him back to the team.

Through the swing of this period of heavy negotiation and “BIG MONEY TALK”, Jamison is still confident his teammate will be back to the team in Washington.
“Let me ask you: If somebody offered you, what is it, $100 million?” Jamison said. “I don’t care if you’re Gil or you’re so-and-so, would you take the deal?”

“There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I’d be back,” said Jamison, 32.

In December, Jamison also spoke fondly at the time of his role as Washington’s elder statesman, saying: “You know what? I’ve been in a lot of situations before. I’ve been the young fella, I’ve been the guy who’s trying to learn how to be a leader, I’ve been the guy coming off the bench as a sixth man. And now all of a sudden I’m the old head. It’s been 10 years and it’s gone by fast. But I’m really enjoying this.”

At Washington, we hope agent ZERO feels the same way and returns. Don’t leave us Gil!

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