Wizards struggling to process trade of veteran Jason Smith

Former Washington Wizards teammates expressed dismay and sadness that veteran and beloved locker room presence Jason Smith is gone in what appears to be a financial decision by the franchise. Had Smith still been with the team, he likely would’ve remained in his warm-ups and only acted as a beacon of sunshine from the sideline through Washington’s low-effort 116-101 loss to the Cavaliers on Saturday night. But Smith’s presence was missed where he had made his biggest impact — the locker room. “It’s been a crazy 24 hours for us but we’re making due with it,” Bradley Beal said late Saturday night, bringing up Smith on his own. “A lot of us are a little iffy about it. We love Jason. Jason is a huge part of our team but you know, this is a business world that we live in and organization that we’re in ... things happen. Players come and go and now we have Sam. We can’t heckle on it, because it happened but we definitely didn’t come out with the right focus tonight.” A day after the Wizards dealt the 12-year veteran, teammates were still coming to grips with the three-team trade that sent Smith to Milwaukee and netted 6-foot-9 forward Sam Dekker from the Cavaliers. Players understand the business component of this billion-dollar game and accept the fact that their friends can be reduced to transactions. Even so, the Smith deal hit the Wizards hard. In a straw poll conducted within the locker room Saturday night, Wizards’ players expressed myriad emotions about losing Smith, with reactions ranging disappointment to feeling “pissed off,” as one player acknowledged. The word “tough” came up often as teammates described Smith as a morale booster, a brother and all-around good guy. Though unpopular among teammates, make no mistake, the trade was a a good financial decision for Washington. By shipping away Smith, who had appeared in only 12 games this season but was making $5.45 million in the final year of his deal, the team slashed its luxury tax bill from the fourth-highest in the league at $18.3 million to $9.8 million, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. tory in Sunday’s feature at Laurel Park. Jockey Trevor McCarthy never moved his hands as 2-5 favorite Tiz He the One ($2.80) galloped to his third straight win in the third-level $47,000 optional claimer for 3-year-olds and up. The winning time was 1 minute, 35.10 seconds for 1 mile over a fast main track. In a pair of $40,000 maiden special weights for 2-year-olds, Albert Frasetto’s homebred filly Her Royal Highness ($3.40) rallied outside to take the opener by a half-length as the 3-5 favorite in 1:39.54 for 1 mile while Danz a Rebel ($6.20), a son of Revolutionary trained and coowned by Cal Lynch, came with a determined run to edge Going for Gold by a neck in the fourth race, running 5 ½ furlongs in 1:03.45.

MORE LAUREL PARK: Neither the 20-cent Rainbow 6 nor the 50-cent Late Pick 5 were hit, creating carryovers on both multi-race wagers for the return of live racing Friday at 12:30 p.m. The Rainbow 6 will span Races 4-9 and starts with a jackpot carryover of $10,170.15 from Sunday’s card. The Late Pick 5 (Races 5-9) will begin with a carryover of $4,939.26. ... McCarthy and Angel Suarez each had two winners Sunday. McCarthy was first on Tiz He the One ($2.80) in the third race and Danz a Rebel ($6.20) in the fourth, while Suarez took the second on Bagels and Lox ($7.80) and ninth with Doit for Spite ($5.40). Danz a Rebel and Doit for Spite are both trained by Cal Lynch.