<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>After being selected 10th overall in the 2002 draft by the Miami Heat, Caron Butler was quite unhappy with the nine teams that passed on him. To quote him verbatim: "I'm going to make them pay for the rest of my career." Since then, Butler has been part of two trades. The second was definitely the more questionable one. First, Butler was traded to Los Angeles along with Lamar Odom and Brian Grant as part of the Shaq deal in 2005. Then, after a disappointing 34-48 season with the Lakers in which he averaged 15.5 PPG, Butler was promptly traded to the Washington Wizards. That was a head-scratcher. Butler was traded with Chucky Atkins in exchange for Kwame Brown and Laron Profit. At the time, I understood that the Lakers needed a big man who could produce... But Kwame Brown? A guy who'll go down as one of the worst first-overall picks in sports history? Get serious. Now, all that's left is the hypothetical: What if the trade that sent Butler to Washington never happened? An athletic scorer and defender, Butler seemed to be the ideal complement to Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom in Phil Jackson's system. You have to figure the Lakers with Butler would have been better than they were in the last two seasons, when they were twice bounced from the playoffs in the first round. Butler's consistent scoring would have made him an especially valuable asset. CB has already shown himself to be a 20 PPG scorer—even if he has other 20 PPG scorers alongside him. Imagine a starting lineup of Derek Fisher, Bryant, Butler, Odom, and Andrew Bynum. Not too bad, if you ask me—but I guess now we can only wonder what might have been.</div> Source: Bleacher Report
The Lakers completely screwed up on this one. No clue what they were thinking here. Although I'm glad they did it, I love seeing him on the Wizards. He's the star on that team with Gil out. Seems like that team's all his.
He's someone who I've always had admiration for because he overcame struggles as a youth and worked his ass off to become better than what most teams projected him to be. That's one of the steals of the decade for Washington. Mitch might be remembered as the guy that traded Shaq, but this is pretty piss poor too.
Definitely the worst trade this past decade for our Lakers team. I guess thats what we get after taking Shaq from Orlando for nothing.
I still cry to this day when I watch highlights of him in Washington. He is a top 10 SF in the game today. I love his game and his work ethic. I'm so happy it all paid off for him.
Honestly, I do not think Butler would have been a fit on our team. He wouldn't have gotten the leader role as that belongs to Kobe and LO. In Washington, it's just him and Jamison right now, and he is getting the experience of putting the team on his shoulders. He wouldn't have progressed nearly as fast if he was wearing P&G. Anyways, now that Kwame is leaving the team this summer, look for the Lakers to improve at the PF and move LO back down to the 3 OR start Ariza at 3 and have LO play 4. Worked against the Suns.
This wouldn't be the worst of the Lakers trades. I remember shortly before PJax was hired, the roster had Shaq and Kobe and Rick Fox AND Eldon Campbell and Nick Van Exel and Eddie Jones - the latter three being traded away with basically only Glen Rice in return. While the Lakers did 3peat, they would have been that much more amazing a team with those three than they were with Rice (who lasted 1 year with the lakers, he was basically traded for a washed up Horace Grant).
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lakerman34 @ Dec 27 2007, 11:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Honestly, I do not think Butler would have been a fit on our team. He wouldn't have gotten the leader role as that belongs to Kobe and LO. In Washington, it's just him and Jamison right now, and he is getting the experience of putting the team on his shoulders. He wouldn't have progressed nearly as fast if he was wearing P&G. Anyways, now that Kwame is leaving the team this summer, look for the Lakers to improve at the PF and move LO back down to the 3 OR start Ariza at 3 and have LO play 4. Worked against the Suns.</div> Lamar, a leader? Caron was such a great fit for this team. Caron and Kobe were/are best of friends, trained together all off-season, and then Caron was shipped out without Kobe being asked about it. Caron came along that year much better than Odom did. When Odom went out with the injury towards the end of the year, I believe Caron averaged around 17-23 PPG, somewhere in there. I thought it was towards the low to mid 20's, can someone check on that?
