The Wizards’ #5 pick has been the subject of much speculation in the weeks leading up to the draft, and it looks like it may have finally found a home.

The Washington Wizards are close to a deal that would send the No. 5 pick in Thursday’s draft, Oleksiy Pecherov, Etan Thomas and Darius Songaila to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Randy Foye and Mike Miller, a league source told ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher on Tuesday.

The Wolves would then keep the draft pick and their own selection at No. 6 and not try to package those to move up, a source told ESPN.com’s Andy Katz.

The Wizards had a hole at off guard, and they certainly filled it with this trade. DeShawn Stevenson and Nick Young manned the position last season, so Foye and Miller will give the Wizards two more perimeter weapons. But are Foye and Miller worth whatever the Wizards would have been able to get with the #5 pick?

Whether or not Minnesota fans like this trade will depend on how much they like Randy Foye. While he averaged 16.3 points and 4.3 assists last season, he shot just 41% from the field and wasn’t particularly efficient in his minutes (PER: 13.76). Miller is a good player, but he just had the worst season of his career, failing to crack double digits in scoring (though he did average 6.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists for a PER of 13.84). I think he can still help the Wizards.

The T-Wolves are reportedly most interested in Hasheem Thabeet and Stephen Curry, though there is no guarantee that either player will be available at #5. In fact, Thabeet is projected to go #2 or #3, while Curry is more likely to be available at #5. Since this is such a point guard heavy draft, I wonder what the T-Wolves plan to do if the draft goes as follows: #1 Blake Griffin, #2 Hasheem Thabeet, #3 James Harden and #4 Ricky Rubio — will they draft two guards like Curry and Tyreke Evans? Or will they draft Jordan Hill at a position that is already a position of strength? Or will they go with Curry and DeMar DeRozan, who can play either wing position? Are Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings or Jrue Holiday in the mix?

If Harden slips to #5 and Curry is there, Minnesota could lock up its backcourt in one fell swoop.

Promise for Terrence Williams?

Williams went back for a second workout with the Bobcats on Monday against Gerald Henderson. Sources said after the workout that Williams met with the Bobcats and might have walked away with a promise that the Bobcats would take him at No. 12.

Williams has been moving up of late, and now it looks like he may have leapfrogged Henderson in a pretty thin shooting guard draft class. The Warriors are reportedly high on him at #7 as well.

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TrueHoop has a nice piece on Louisville forward Earl Clark, a versatile 6’10” forward who some believe has the most upside of anyone in this draft even though he’s projected to go in the middle of the first round. His advocates say that he’s a top five talent but his detractors say that he’s a tweener and doesn’t have the drive or intensity to succeed in the NBA.

Clark embodies this basketball archetype. When he falls below the radar on the court — whether it was in that horrendous game against UConn or in a hostile road environment like Morgantown, West Virginia — it isn’t so much that he’s unassertive. It’s often a case of not knowing which of his many skills to assert on a specific play. A player like Clark can look like he’s taking plays off when, in reality, he’s paralyzed by choice.

When Clark gets twitchy on a halfcourt possession, he often holds the ball overhead along the perimeter. He looks over at the weak side, then down low, then back up at his point guard. There’s a moment you think he’ll put the ball on the deck and drive past his defender, and sometimes he’ll start his dribble move that way. Only Clark doesn’t display the tunnel vision of a fierce slasher. You can riffle through dozens of clips before you see Clark simply put his head down and drive for the hole. He hesitates, will look for a kickout or a cutter, maybe back it out, or just stop in his tracks. It’s the tentativeness of someone with too many options.

Watching Clark at moments like these evokes memories of Lamar Odom’s early days with the Los Angeles Clippers. Odom came to the pro game with a vast array of skills, almost none of which were wholly NBA-ready. He’d recognize a mismatch — for instance, a hulking big man guarding him on the ball along the perimeter. Odom’s initial instincts would be spot on, and he’d blow by the big man without much effort. But he’d ease up before he got to the hole, which would allow a lanky weak side defender to challenge the play and force him to his weaker right hand. Prior to arriving in the NBA, Odom never needed more than 80% speed to finish an elementary play like that.

The Odom comparison is a good one. It’s frustrating to watch the Laker forward because at times he’s the best player on the floor. Other times, he barely makes an impact. I watched several Louisville games this season and Clark seems to be a background player. He doesn’t make a big deal when he makes a great play, and his points are often of the “quiet” variety. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t effective.

He averaged 14.2 points, 8.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.4 blocks and 3.2 turnovers per game during his senior year. He shot 46% from the field, 65% from the line and 33% from long range; none of those numbers are particularly good for a 6’10” perimeter-oriented forward, but keep in mind that he was arguably the best player on a Louisville team that won the Big East Championship.

Clark’s draft stock was consistently in the top 10 most of the season and started to take a dip when all of these point guards — Jonny Flynn, Stephen Curry, Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday — began to emerge before and after the combine. Now he’s projected to go in the middle of the round, while the occasional mock will have him cracking the top 10, usually to Toronto at #9 or to Milwaukee at #10.

TrueHoop tracked down Brandon Jennings’ former teammate, Ibrahim Jaaber, to provide a scouting report on Jennings and Ricky Rubio.

Ibrahim Jaaber is uniquely situated to comment on both. It is much discussed that Jennings did not play much for his Italian team, Lottomatica Roma. That’s in part because Jennings played behind Jaaber, a former two-time Ivy League player of the year who has played in Europe since graduating in 2007.

Jaaber agreed to provide a scouting report on his former teammate, Jennings, as well as Rubio, whom Jaaber faced on the court last December. I don’t know if it’s fair to expect Jaaber to be unbiased — Jennings is a former teammate, and he has no such relationship with Rubio — but he assures he is speaking from the heart when he writes:

I look at both as players who will need to be nurtured and given a lot of attention in order to thrive in the NBA. After one or two seasons in the League, given the same coaching, opportunities and development, in my opinion, I think Brandon Jennings will be the overall better player. Which is not to say that Ricky won’t be successful. I just think Brandon has greater potential — and as they are both in my eyes players who will have to make great developments, I would invest my pick in the better athlete, Brandon Jennings.

The piece is longer, and Jaaber makes a case for both players, but he’d take Jennings over Rubio.

Jennings was a top 5 pick all season, but has seen his stock drop recently as concerns over his lack of playing time in Italy crossed with the emergence of several other point guard prospects, namely Tyreke Evans, Jrue Holiday, Stephen Curry and Jonny Flynn. Everything I’m reading points to the fact that Jennings is a great athlete and has outstanding quickness, but doesn’t have the same feel for the game as some of the other prospects do. His jumper seems to be falling and he has had several good workouts in recent days. He could go as early as #7 (to the Warriors) or possibly as late as #14 (to the Suns), and given the fluidity of this draft, even that’s not a solid range.

On his draft buzz blog [Insider subscription required], Chad Ford dispelled the notion that the Warriors made a promise to Monta Ellis not to draft a point guard at #7. He spoke with GM Larry Riley, who said that the topic never came up. In an interview with KNBR, Ellis confirmed that the meeting was about getting everyone on the same page and said that if the team drafted a point guard, he was going to “do anything to help the team win.” Riley told Ellis that if they do use him at the point, his primary responsibility will be to “get guys more involved” and help his teammates “get off.”

Riley told Ford that he would “like to have a little beef” and said that the Warriors could “use more size and toughness.” Does this mean that they’ll draft Jordan Hill at #7, if available? Probably, but Riley also said that the Warriors didn’t “have a gaping hole at any position” so that they can “draft the best player available.”

Ellis thrived at off guard playing alongside Baron Davis two seasons ago, averaging 20.2 points, 3.9 assists and 4.9 rebounds, and shot an astounding 53% from the field.