"When Mike Bibby made his debut on Friday with the Washington Wizards, his brother-in-law, Miami Heat reserve guard Eddie House, burst into laughter, pointing at Bibby's awkward No. 00 jersey. Bibby looked down at his blue uniform, rolled his eyes, shook his head and shrugged.

From the moment he arrived last week in a five-player trade from Atlanta involving Kirk Hinrich, Bibby had no desire to play out the final days of his career on a lottery team. But Bibby proved how committed he was to possibly joining a playoff contender when he agreed to accept a buyout from the Wizards on Monday that required him to give back his entire $6.2 million salary next season.

"That shows you how much he wants to win," Bibby's agent, David Falk said in a telephone interview.

After about four days of informal negotiations, Bibby, Falk, and Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld met at Verizon Center to finalize the terms. Bibby, a 13-year veteran, will receive the remainder of his $5.7 million salary this season and has a chance to make more, should he sign a prorated minimum deal with his next team.

The settlement is a financial boon for the Wizards, who essentially turned Bibby into an expiring contract. With an agreement that amounts to a two-year buyout, the Wizards will still have a salary charge on their books of about $1 million next season for Bibby, but it is considerably less than what that they would've paid him to back up John Wall next season.

The Wizards worked out a buyout for $1.5 million last season with Zydrunas Ilgauskas after he was acquired from Cleveland in the Antawn Jamison deal, but one league source described the situation with Bibby as, "Fall-out-of-the-sky-luck."

"This gives us increased financial flexibility and also allows our young players to get significant minutes to develop them and continue to evaluate them," Grunfeld said. "It is a big sacrifice. [Bibby] said he's made a lot of money in this league and he enjoyed his few days here, but he had been in the playoffs eight, nine years in a row and he's almost 33 years old and he doesn't think he has many opportunities left for it and he wanted to take a shot on it. I didn't want to close the door on it and when he was willing to make that kind of sacrifice, we felt it was beneficial for us and was something we had to take advantage of." "