WESTWOOD, Calif. — Kyle Kuzma stepped off the Washington Wizards‘ chartered plane, some 2,700 miles West and 25 degrees warmer than his new home in the nation’s capital and couldn’t help but share his excitement with his million-plus Twitter followers.
“Nothing like getting off the plane and that California breeze hit you,” Kuzma tweeted Thursday morning after the Wizards landed in Los Angeles.
Nothing like getting off the plane and that California breeze hit you 🌴
— kuz (@kylekuzma) December 15, 2022
A couple of Kuzma’s contemporaries — Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell and Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young — quickly chimed in, calling shenanigans on Kuzma’s innocuous weatherman routine.
“Tampering,” Mitchell replied, with two laughing emojis. “Basically,” Young replied to Mitchell, agreeing that Kuzma’s tweet had some not-so-subtle subtext behind it.
Their insinuation was that Kuzma — who told the Washington Post this week that he would not seek an in-season extension with the Wizards and plans to opt out of the final year of his contract — wanted to make it a permanent trip.
Kuzma, they figured, was trying to tip the scales to return to the Los Angeles Lakers after the purple and gold sent him to D.C. in the Russell Westbrook deal in the summer of 2021.
ESPN reported last month that the Lakers planned to become more active on the trade market come Dec. 15 when contracts signed during the summer become eligible to be moved.
“I mean, everything I do gets attention,” Kuzma told ESPN after the Wizards’ practice at UCLA on Friday, scoffing at Mitchell and Young’s responses. “So, it is what it is.”
Kuzma is certainly not asking out. His game has expanded in a season and a half with the Wizards, and he is putting up career-highs in points (21.4), field goal percentage (46.2%), assists (3.6) and minutes (35.0) per game.
But he isn’t a rookie when it comes to knowing how the league works. The most the Wizards can offer him is a four-year, $70 million in-season contract extension.
“It’s not a smart business move,” Kuzma said. “The max I can make if I sign right now is $15 [million]. If you look at the market, that’s not market price.”
When he hits the open market as an unrestricted free agent, he would qualify for a max contract of up to 30% of a team’s salary cap — up to approximately $40 million per year — according to ESPN front office insider Bobby Marks. There are nine teams with significant projected cap room in the summer of 2023,…
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