{"id":171074,"date":"2025-07-14T23:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T23:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/171074\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T23:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T23:42:13","slug":"wizards-waive-13-million-center-making-him-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/171074\/","title":{"rendered":"Wizards Waive $13 Million Center, Making Him Free Agent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wizards Waive $13 Million Center, Making Him Free Agent<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Washington Wizards’ frontcourt has undergone some drastic changes of late.<\/p>\n

Following a miserable 18-64 finish in 2024-25, the Wizards continued to add intriguing pieces to their young core via the 2025 NBA draft, bringing in Texas guard Tre Johnson with the No. 6 pick, using their rights to the No. 21 selection on Illinois swingman Will Riley, grabbing Florida State shooting guard\/forward Jamir Watkins with the No. 43 pick.<\/p>\n

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Those new pieces will presumably get plenty of run alongside recent lottery picks Alex Sarr, Carlton “Bub” Carrington, and Bilal Coulibaly, plus young swingman Corey Kispert.<\/p>\n

Washington is fully embracing the tank, often acquiring unwanted aging vets in exchange for future draft equity. Now, the Wizards are ditching one of their own unwanted aging vets.<\/p>\n

Washington has opted to waive veteran center Richaun Holmes, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype. Only $250K of his $13.28 million salary for 2025-26 was guaranteed.<\/p>\n

After declining his $12.9 million player option for 2024-25 last summer, Holmes agreed to a two-year, $25.9 million deal instead, which included the partially guaranteed $250K salary for 2025-26.<\/p>\n

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Holmes was a 2024 trade deadline addition to Washington as part of the deal that shipped Daniel Gafford off to the Mavericks, helping to ignite Dallas’ run to the NBA Finals that summer.<\/p>\n

Earlier this summer, Washington inked free agent center Marvin Bagley III, the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft ahead of Jaren Jackson Jr., Luka Doncic, Trae Young and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Washington Wizards logo is projected on the court during player intros.Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Bagley will serve as a backup to Alex Sarr, the No. 2 pick in the 2024 draft who’s shown a lot more promise than Bagley ever did. The Wizards also traded for ex-New Orleans Pelicans power forward\/center Kelly Olynyk last week, but ultimately flipped him to the San Antonio Spurs.<\/p>\n

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Across just 31 games last year, the 6-foot-10 pro out of Bowling Green averaged 7.4 points on 64.7% shooting from the field and 83.3% shooting from the charity stripe, 5.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 0.7 blocks.<\/p>\n

At 31, Holmes doesn’t make much sense on a rebuilding Wizards roster looking to develop its young players and win later. Now that he’s a late addition to the free agent market, however, Holmes should be able to attract at least some interest from teams looking to add bench depth at the center position.<\/p>\n

Related: Wizards Facing Backlash After Trade Announcement on Sunday<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jul 14, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wizards Waive $13 Million Center, Making Him Free Agent originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Washington Wizards’ frontcourt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[979,7,1257,6339,686,2619,31646,3531,496,2289,368,6338,7057,6,6337,474,209,494,952,682,468,3892,982,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-171074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-alex-sarr","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bilal-coulibaly","11":"tag-corey-kispert","12":"tag-dallas","13":"tag-daniel-gafford","14":"tag-florida-state-shooting","15":"tag-jamir-watkins","16":"tag-jaren-jackson-jr","17":"tag-kelly-olynyk","18":"tag-luka-doncic","19":"tag-marvin-bagley-iii","20":"tag-michael-scotto","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-richaun-holmes","23":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","24":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","25":"tag-trae-young","26":"tag-tre-johnson","27":"tag-washington","28":"tag-washington-wizards","29":"tag-washingtonwizards","30":"tag-will-riley","31":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114854241529662427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}