The Washington Wizards have chosen to pick up the fourth year option on forward Jared Jeffries but not on guard Juan Dixon, the Washington Post is reporting.

According to President of Basketball Operations Ernie Grunfield the decision to decline the option on Dixon was was made to give the team the ability to keep several free agents.

Starting shooting guard Larry Hughes will be an unrestricted free agent. Starting big men Kwame Brown and Brendan Haywood and backup point guard Steve Blake will be restricted free agents next summer. Grunfeld said the decision to pass on Dixon's option was strictly business.

"We like both players," he said. "Jared has some size to him and he has shown some progress, as has Juan. But this doesn't mean that down the road, Juan isn't a part of the organization. We just have a lot of money tied up in the guard position and this gives us more flexibility."

Washington had until Sunday to sign Brown and Haywood to extensions.

Antonio Davis and Eddy Curry of the Bulls received two-game suspensions, Washington's Larry Hughes drew a one-game suspension and Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich was handed a $10,000 fine.

Brendan Haywood of the Washington Wizards was suspended for three games by the NBA on Wednesday for fighting during a preseason game against the Chicago Bulls.

The penalties were announced Wednesday by NBA vice president Stu Jackson, who found Haywood most at fault for the fight late in the third quarter of Chicago's 100-95 victory on Monday night.

Haywood, Davis and Curry were suspended for throwing punches, while Hughes was penalized for initiating the confrontation by head-butting Hinrich.

The suspensions take effect with the opening of the NBA regular season next week.

With 3 minutes 22 seconds left in the third quarter and the Wizards leading the Bulls by 16 points, Chicago forward Luol Deng made a behind-the-back dribble just inside the three-point line to get around Gilbert Arenas. Deng had a clear path to the hoop when Hughes came charging hard from the side.

Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich tried to cut off Hughes, but Hughes shoved Hinrich into Deng, causing Deng to land awkwardly on his backside. "I did give him a nice push," Hughes said.

Hinrich took exception and approached Hughes, then Haywood pushed Hinrich. Haywood later said: "Somebody pushed me. I think it was him, Antonio Davis." He then pushed Davis with both hands. "It was uncalled for," Davis said.

As Davis motioned toward Haywood, Hughes pushed Davis and shouted at him. Then, Haywood swung at Davis, punching him in the face. Haywood backpedaled for about 15 feet, losing his footing before Davis ran through official Bill Kennedy to wrestle Haywood to the floor.

Davis, who was at that point atop the 7-foot Haywood, threw a punch before players from both teams piled on top of each other. Michael Ruffin grabbed Davis to pull him from Haywood, and Bulls forward Eddy Curry swung at Haywood's midsection.

The agent for Washington Wizards forward Jared Jeffries believes the club will pick up the option year on Jeffries' contract any day now.
   
Andy Miller, who also represents Wizards Michael Ruffin and Anthony Peeler, has had conversations recently with Wizards president of basketball operations Ernie Grunfeld and is confident something is about to be done.
   
Jeffries, the 11th pick of the 2002 NBA Draft, is scheduled to earn approximately $1.5 million this season. In his option season (2005-06), Jeffries will be paid approximately $2 million.

Last season new free-agent signee Gilbert Arenas predicted that the Wizards would make the playoffs.

The year before it was Doug Collins.

Michael Jordan also said it.

As did Wes Unseld and even Gheorghe Muresan, star of My Giant.

This season owner Abe Pollin is making the playoff claim if they remain healthy.  "We should be in the playoffs this year," with that condition in hand.

Rookie point guard Gerald Fitch out of Kentucky has been very impressive thus far as he tries to make the Washington Wizard roster.

"I like a lot of things that I see from him," says Eddie Jordan, who talks glowingly about the former Kentucky player, a first-team All-SEC selection last season. "I like his ball pressure and energy on the floor. He's always putting pressure on the ball. He comes to practice, and he stays late. We all can see that he has potential to be a point guard."

The 6-foot-3, 188-pound Fitch improved in each of his four seasons at Kentucky. Coach Tubby Smith trusted him enough to play either guard position, something that caught the eye of the Wizards. The Wizards brought him in for a pre-draft workout, and when he didn't get drafted, they invited him to training camp.

"Sacramento and Houston both called me and expressed an interest in me," says Fitch, who averaged 16.2 points as a senior. "But the Wizards seemed like they were the most interested in me. I thought that there was a good opportunity there."

The Washington Wizards have eight potential free agents on the roster, including projected starters Hughes, Haywood and Brown. Haywood, Brown and second-year point guard Steve Blake could be restricted free agents after this season, and Hughes an unrestricted free agent.

Anthony Peeler and Samaki Walker both signed one-year deals last summer. The team also has until Oct. 31 to pick up the options on Jared Jeffries and Juan Dixon, otherwise one or both could become free agents as well.

"You just play ball and don't think about the money, 'cause if you chase it you always lose it, especially in Vegas," Brown said.

 The collective bargaining agreement will expire after this season, but Brown said he doesn't think anything will get done until next summer. "I'm not thinking about contracts, I'm just trying to get healthy so I can play again," said Brown, who has missed all of training camp with a broken bone in his right foot. "We've got to get the new deal on the table for the whole entire league, so it doesn't make sense for an owner to talk about a deal right now."

"This is definitely an important year for me, but I can't look at it like, 'It's my contract year. It's my contract year,' and put undo pressure on myself," Haywood said. "Just play every game to the best of my ability. If I do that, the contract thing will take care of itself. I think it's motivation. If you have a bad game, you can be like, 'It's my contract year.' But you don't let it control you."

?You?re not going to reduce me to an entertainer,? Bill Russell once said. ?I?m a man who stands up for what I believe in and you?re going to respect me for it.?

I was raised with that belief, and I admire athletes of the past, like Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, John Carlos, Tommie Smith, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Each of these men used his position as a platform to speak out on social issues and bring attention to topics they thought important. While I have no plans to run for elected office in the future, I think it?s important for me to follow in the footsteps of people I admire and seek opportunities to educate fellow citizens on issues important to me.

Basketball is a passion as well as my profession, but it is not everything. I?m just as passionate about off-court interests such as poetry writing, community activism, and motivational speaking.

There's a saying: ?I speak my mind because biting my tongue would make my pride bleed.?

Wizards forward Kwame Brown will miss the first month of the season after breaking the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot in a pickup game.

"The doctors told me I could be practicing full speed by the end of November," Brown said Tuesday as the Wizards opened training camp at Virginia Commonwealth University. "I think it will be another six weeks before I can practice full speed."

It may not demand the attention of a Lakers-Celtics rivalry, mainly because the Wizards haven't even made the Playoffs for so long, but this isn't stopping star guard Gilbert Arenas from taking shots at the Miami Heat and their new superstar Shaquille O'Neal.

"I know everybody is thinking Shaquille O'Neal is going to do everything for Miami, but I think they got rid of too many people to get him," Arenas said yesterday.

Arenas has always been very vocal in his opinions, but one has to question the intelligence in unnecessarily lighting a fire under not only the team which is in their own SouthEast division, but one of the leagues up and coming stars who will be Arenas' direct opponent in Dwayne Wade.

"Dwyane Wade proved that he couldn't shoot in the Olympics. They've also got Eddie Jones, but let's be honest: combined, the two of them are not Kobe. Shaq is going to find out that they don't have the role players or the bench that the Lakers had, so it's not going to be the same."

Look for both Shaq and Wade to have November 6 (in Washington) and again on November 9 (in Miami) circled on their calendars.