Is he any good though? Surely there are better, cheaper, options.

With no retention, take him for free. With retention though there would need to be something more significant coming back than what you have here, otherwise caps will just wait and make a decision in the offseason

Theoretically we could make this same trade with no retention. There's space. But a 3rd/2nd and a decent prospect in Foote for retaining 1.5 million feels pretty fair no?

He's probably not worth 5.7 right now, but he was on average a 2.3 GSVA player and averaged a 55 point pace over the previous 3 seasons. I think he could get back close to that with us. Not many guys available with that kind of upside with size, and relatively cheap, trade asset wise. He's missed a bunch of time recently but it's a relatively low risk, high reward swing, that, at worst is only on the books for another season.

Alright, I am at least intrigued. Not sold yet though.

I can't imagine Washington would entertain any trade that involved retention given that they'll need cap space for next year and trading Mantha would be because of said cap space issues. I personally think Washington should hold onto him and let him play top 6 minutes under a different coach, but if they were to trade him, I don't think this return is very appealing to DC.

Washington has been reportedly only been entertaining trade offers for good value, no meager returns, which makes me think Mantha is unlikely to move (since most would agree his value is quite tarnished right now), and in this trade itself Blackwood brings no value to DC and would be viewed as a dump for them (wouldn't get time over Kumper and Lindgren). The Foote + Cond. 3rd part isn't horrible, (about what Washington had to add in to upgrade from Vrana to Mantha) but I think Washington would keep him for next year if the offer didn't start with a 2nd based on the previous trades/extension choices.

Sure it's fair but doesn't mean its the best option for washington. They clearly are not gearing up to make the playoffs this year so they don't need the cap space right now. Laviolette almost certainly won't be back and a new coach might give Mantha higher usage. More teams will probably be willing to take a risk on Mantha in the summer when he only has one year left and their strategies are a bit more set. There's just no real downside to waiting on a Mantha move until this summer unless there is truly an offer you can't refuse. BMac has already proven he's not moving guys just to move them with the Jensen extension. Foote and a 3rd are nice, but not that nice.