The Wizards could give Kevin Durant the best chance to win

— -- We're a few weeks early for "A Christmas Carol," but on Tuesday night Kevin Durant might get a glimpse of his future when his Oklahoma City Thunder visit the Washington Wizards.

Among the realistic contenders to sign Durant away from the Thunder when he becomes an unrestricted free agent next summer, the Wizards appear to present him the best chance of continued success.

Projecting the Wizards with Durant

After the Wizards passed on an extension for shooting guard Bradley Beal, they can get as far as $38 million below the projected $89.5 million salary cap for 2016-17 -- enough to add Durant's expected $25.1 million maximum salary and still have plenty of money left over.

Cleaning house by waiving forwards Drew Gooden and Kris Humphries (non-guaranteed) and wing Martell Webster (whose salary is guaranteed for just $2.5 million provided he plays fewer than 70 games this season) would leave Washington with a core group of starters Beal, Marcin Gortat, Otto Porter and John Wall as well as rookie Kelly Oubre.

Based on a combination of ESPN's real plus-minus and my wins above replacement player (WARP) stat, here are the wins I project from those players in 2016-17 and 2017-18, along with the Wizards' draft picks and their leftover cap space after signing Durant:

After adding the 10 wins I estimate for a team of replacement-level players, this suggests the gutted Wizards without Durant would be around a .500 team -- 37 wins or so next season and 39 in 2017-18. Adding in Durant, who topped out at 23 WARP during his 2013-14 MVP campaign, would push Washington's projected win total into the high 50s or possibly even 60s.

While the projections don't yet include 2015-16 results, the way the Wizards have evolved this season makes Durant an especially interesting fit. Following up on the successful move of now-departed Paul Pierce to power forward in last year's playoffs, Randy Wittman is playing smaller lineups that put more shooting on the floor.

Wittman has played lineups with just one traditional big man more than a third of the time this season. Those lineups have been outscored by 0.3 points per 100 possessions, via lineup data from NBA.com/Stats, as compared with minus-6.3 per 100 possessions for lineups with two bigs on the court.

Because there are few post-up 4 men in the East, Washington could slide Durant into that spot in place of Humphries, its weakest starter.

Other potential Durant destinations

The Washington situation looks better than the projections for other big-market teams with the cap space to sign Durant outright, including the Brooklyn Nets , Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat and New York Knicks. Factoring in the other moves they'd have to make to clear sufficient cap space -- for example, the Heat would likely have to let center Hassan Whiteside leave via free agency, hurting their outlook -- here's how their projections compare to the one for the Wizards.

If he's willing to look around, Durant might have better opportunities to win. The Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, who haven't been big players in free agency, would give Durant the opportunity to play with deeper, young rosters.

There also are contenders such as the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets who don't currently project to have significant cap room but would surely find a way to clear it if Durant were interested in signing on.

Projecting the Thunder with Durant

As intriguing as the Wizards might be with Durant, they'd have a hard time matching the Thunder over the next few seasons if the team stays intact. Thanks to its depth and a second star in Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City projects as a 45-win team even without Durant -- consistent with what we saw last season, when the Thunder went 22-18 (a 45-win clip) in games Westbrook played that Durant missed.

Based on this chart, Durant's best chance of winning is staying in Oklahoma City. There's a caveat, however -- Westbrook's own free agency in the summer of 2017, when power forward Serge Ibaka also can be an unrestricted free agent.

The Thunder's 2017-18 projections look very different depending on whether Westbrook and/or Ibaka re-sign with the team.

If Durant signed a multiyear contract to stay with Oklahoma City this summer, the Thunder would have little flexibility to replace either Ibaka or Westbrook via free agency if one of the two left. In conjunction with holds for restricted free agents Steven Adams and Andre Roberson, re-signing one of the two players for the expected 2017-18 maximum salary for players of their experience ($29.5 million) would leave Oklahoma City nearly capped out in the summer of 2017.

Barring a sign-and-trade, the Thunder would probably have only the midlevel exception to replace Ibaka or Westbrook if one of them departed. (The team would have cap space if both Ibaka and Westbrook left via free agency.)

Before he re-signs, then, Durant must be confident that his fellow Oklahoma City stars will follow his lead the subsequent summer. Even losing Ibaka would be enough to knock the Thunder's projection (27.1) below the Wizards' (29.4) in 2017-18, while Westbrook's departure would leave Oklahoma City's projection (21.2) substantially worse than Washington's.

As Zach Lowe has written, Durant could pursue a compromise outcome that would avoid the possibility of getting left as the Thunder's lone star.

Re-signing a one-year deal (or a two-year deal with a player option on the second season) would tie Durant's free agency to those of Ibaka and Westbrook while also potentially making him more money over the life of his next contract. Because Durant will be a 10-year veteran after 2016-17, he'll be eligible for a maximum salary starting at 35 percent of the cap rather than the 30 percent he's limited to now.

After dealing with a Jones fracture of his right foot last season that required multiple surgeries, Durant may not be interested in risking a short-term contract. If he believes Westbrook is likely to leave via free agency, the Wizards might be Durant's best option for continued success. They'll try on Tuesday night to show him what that might look like.