If I’m looking for a source to confirm whether a team is willing to cough up money for a free agent, I’d probably look inside that team’s front office for somebody with inside knowledge of the GM’s thoughts.

Lawrence takes a different journalistic route, choosing instead to use a rival GM as a source on whether the Wizards are interested in signing Noah to a max contract. He proceeds to make fun of Washington’s proclivity for overspending in free agency. In the interest of science, let’s find the last time the Wizards paid big money to sign a player outside of their organization that didn’t work out.

After searching through the Wizards transaction history going back to 2009, I didn’t find a single contract the Wizards awarded to a free agent anywhere near the max level. There are plenty of other bad moves within that time frame (Hello, Andray Blatche extension!), but none that would be anything like giving a max contract to a big man who shot juuuuust under 42 percent on lay-ups last season.

There are, in fact, probably more good moves than bad, such as having the foresight to sign Gortat to a long contract for well under his current value and give Wall a max extension without hesitation, something people somehow questioned at the time. But we don’t care about that.

GIVE ME THE T A K E S.

Okay, so if the Wizards aren’t going to offer this smoking dumpster fire gif a max contract, what’s the point of the rumor?

Of the four teams implicated in Lawrence’s report, the Knicks are by far the most likely to pursue Noah, as they’re the only team that could really offer Noah a starting role. Put that together with Lawrence having by far his closest ties to the Knicks organization, plus the less than stellar prospects for Noah’s next contract heading into the offseason and…

Oh. Joakim Noah’s agent is planting rumors about his player being in the market for a max contract because he wants to start a bidding war for a player who is unlikely to cause a significant one otherwise.

Follow me on Twitter for more dumb basketball stuff like this at @msilich2.