Late this morning the Washington Wizards officially waived Zydrunas Ilgauskas after completing their anticipated buyout of the 7-foot-3 center. With the Wizards already under the luxury tax after trading away Dominic McGuire last week, Big Z had to pay $1.5 million for his freedom, according to a source familiar with the terms of the deal.

“He’s got a year left, maybe this year, maybe he’ll play next year, and I just think that he’s not a guy – [Wizards president of basketball operations] Ernie [Grunfeld] talked to him more than me – and he wanted to be in a situation, whatever it is, wherever he decides to go, he wanted to have a chance to be in a playoff-type situation,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. “Even if he was going to be somewhere where he could build on it for four or five years, there wasn’t a use for him to be here.