While Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld sits back and plays “wait and see” game for any offers that he likes from teams for Juan Carlos Navarro’s rights, he has wasted no time in his first step to retain restricted free agent forward Andray Blatche. Now that the Wizards lost a potential suitor for Navarro after Miami agreed to terms with guard Smush Parker yesterday. The Wizards have now apparently turned their focus Blatche.

According a report from Washington Times, the Wizards Friday night offered Blatche a three-year deal worth about $11 million.

On Sunday, however, Washington Post’s Ivan Carter cited that the amount the Wizards offered to Blatche was less than $11 million, according to a team source who refuted the previous published report. It did confirm that talks between the two parties are ongoing.

According to several reports, Barcelona, Navarro’s current team, has imposed a deadline of Aug. 3 for the Wizards to complete a deal. That means the Wizards will have to decide until the end of next week whether to sign guard Juan Carlos Navarro or trade his NBA rights to another team.

In today’s Washington Post’s report, eight teams have contacted with the Wizards with interest in acquiring Navarro, including the Miami Heat and Memphis Grizzlies, so far, no offers have been to the liking of Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld.

Now that Mo Williams chose Bew City over South Beach, the Heat has more reasons to pursue Navarro. Accorrding to Navarro’s agent, Alex Saratsis, the Heat remains “a solid possibility” for the point guard if the Washington Wizards trade his rights. The two teams are in active negotiations, according to a report from South Florida Sun-Sentinel. According to the official press release from the Miami Heat, they have signed free agent guard Smush Parker.

The Spanish team that Navarro played for has dropped his buyout number from $14 million to $3 million. However, if no deal is done between the Wizards and a team pursuing him, Barcelona will sign him to a new contract, and his buyout number will be prohibitive, at least $14 million again.

The bottomline is that he will not be playing in Washington. The Wizards are over the cap and only could have signed Navarro with money from their mid-level exception. Most of that money has now been given to DeShawn Stevenson, and the team still has to sign Andray Blatche.

So if Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld does not see a reasonable deal from teams like Memphis and Miami before Aug. 3, it might end up with Navarro playing his professional ball in Spain for a forseeable future.

Now with the clock ticking down and a complicated decision to make involving Barcelona, Navarro (and his agent), the Wizards and the team pursuing him, what do you think the Wizards will get before the deadline? Is the pressure on Navarro or Grunfeld?

The Wizards held the final round of the 2007-08 Dance Team Auditions Monday night at Verizon Center. After a thorough discussion among the judges (including Gilbert Arenas, Olesksiy Pecherov, and Mike Hall with Dance Team director Tara Perez), they announced 17 dancers to be on the 2007-08 Wizards Dance Team. There is one final spot open and the next three best remaining dancers are on the line. Now it’s up to the Wizards fans to decide which one of these three dancers should make the team…

Editor’s Note: The online voting has been concluded at 4pm on Thursday, July 26. We’ll announce the winner on Friday. And the winner is… (drum rolls…) JOANNA. Congratulations to Joanna. She was voted by the fans and will join the Washington Wizards Dance Team. She beat out the competition by a slim 6% margin. Thank you to everyone who participated.

The Washington Wizards announced today the hiring of Randy Ayers as an assistant coach on Head Coach Eddie Jordan’s staff. Per team policy, terms of the contract were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to have Randy join our coaching staff,” Jordan said. “As an assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers, he implemented the defensive schemes for a team that advanced to the NBA Finals, and he has been on staffs that have made numerous postseason appearances. He will fit in nicely with our coaching staff.”

Ayers spent the last two NBA seasons as an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic, where he helped Orlando reach the NBA Playoffs last season with the league’s seventh ranked defensive unit. Having joined the Magic as an assistant coach on June 10, 2005, Ayers saw the Magic cut the opposition’s scoring from 101.8 points per game in the season prior to his hire, to 96.0 ppg in his first season in Orlando and 94.0 ppg last year.

In response to stories that the FBI is investigating an NBA referee (Tim Donaghy) who bet on games he officiated, Commissioner David Stern discussed the gambling scandal with the media in a press conference earlier this morning. Watch Video

NBA Commissioner David Stern has issued the following statement:

“As we previously stated, we have been cooperating with the FBI in their investigation of allegations that a single NBA referee bet on NBA games that he officiated. As part of that cooperation, we were asked by the Government not to comment about the investigation, but in light of the widespread press coverage and the naming of the referee, Tim Donaghy, we consider it appropriate to make a fuller statement.

“We would like to assure our fans that no amount of effort, time or personnel is being spared to assist in this investigation, to bring to justice an individual who has betrayed the most sacred trust in professional sports, and to take the necessary steps to protect against this ever happening again. We will have more to say at a press conference that will be scheduled for next week.”