http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3722783 they also fired a assistant head coach, and now Ed Tapscott will be the head coach for the wizards
If they really start tanking I'd love to see KP swoop in and try to nab Caron Butler in a consolidation trade of some kind. Tough Juice on the wing with Brandon would take a helluva lot of pressure off of the Roy Wonder.
If we got Caron Butler along side Roy LMA and Oden I would be estatic. I think Outlaw + Bayless + Ike would be great for Butler who is an allstar. I'd be sad about giving away Bayless but with Sergio improving I think he and Blake would be able to hold down fort until either Sergio, Koponen or a PG we aquire through free agency or trade comes in. http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...05~3417~2750~2015&teams=22~27~27~27&te=&cash= Outlaw Bayless Ike For Caron Butler
That's exactly the kind of consolidation trade a lot of us would love to see. I think we'd have to give up more, though. And they just locked in Arenas for 6 years at an enormous salary, so they probably aren't looking for a similar type of guy in Bayless. It's hard to imagine them going into full rebuild mode right now. If I were Washington I'd just try to hold on until Arenas comes back. If they aren't willing to wait, maybe they take a look at dumping some of their ugly lesser players (of which there are legion.) This deal trades Bayless/LaFrentz/Outlaw for Blatche/Songalia/Daniels/Butler: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=3417~454~2015~2746~1705~183~1784&teams=27~27~27~22~22~22~22&te=&cash= It won't help them win, but it'll save their owners over $25 mil in bad contracts in the next 4 years. We'd cut as many of those guys as necessary.
They would get a reliable scorer in Outlaw and by all accounts they would get Bayless a scoring SG who they could team with Gilbert when he gets back. Outlaw is younger and cheaper then Butler and signed for 2 more years a key date for free agency. Also they would get Ike who is a expiring contract. Washington has 9 players on contract currently expiring in 2 years, with this trade they would only have Arenas, Jamison, Blatche and Songila under contract when free agency starts if they don't pick up any offers on their FA's. This means they will be at 36 million or so when Free agency comes around and have room to add a nice piece alongside two Allstar candidates and its even possible that Blatche would emerge by then. The current Cap is 59 Million, it will be around 62 million when there is that large free agent class. After the Wizards use around 10 million to secure the contracts of role players they will still have 16 million or so to extend to a key player. This is also assuming they don't find a way to ship out Songilia who has some alright value and may help a contender such as the spurs who need a shooting big. Oh yeah don't forget Gilbert has already talked about the Wizards tanking this year, if they do that they should have a top draft pick to go along with their core. Odds are I'm totally wrong but this trade scenario isn't all that crazy with everyone trying to get into the Lebron, Bosh, Wade, Nash, Amare, Dirk, Joe Johnson race.
Yeah, I have a hard time seeing them doing it talent-wise. But when you look at their roster, and the salaries they are paying for really mediocre-to-bad players, it's not hard to imagine them angling for a big salary dump. Next season they'll be paying $38 mil to players not named Jamison, Butler or Arenas. Add the "Big 3" in, and they are at $75 mil. You could probably live with that if those guys were decent. But $6 mil for Antonio Daniels? $7.3 mil for Etan Thomas? Darius Songalia? DeShawn Stevenson? Yuck. What a crappy bunch. I don't know that it's so bad that I'd use Caron Butler to create a mulligan. But if I were the owner of a team that was 1-10, I'd be pretty tempted to think that they probably wouldn't do a lot worse with Travis Outlaw instead, and it'd be a hell of a lot less money.
I'd love to add Butler, but it seems hard to figure out how Washington would match up with Portland. They clearly need to start over, but Butler is one of their best players, still relatively young and not overpaid. That seems like exactly the kind of player they'd want to center the rebuild around. If they were willing to move Butler, it would look more like mook's deal, where they dump bad deals in addition to Butler. Dumping Butler doesn't help them, because that's payroll being used well. They'd need to also dump unproductive salary. Getting Bayless, Outlaw and dropping a LaFrentzian chunk of bad deals might keep them from hanging up the phone.
Hard to believe that Gilbert Arenas basically said that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to mail in the season (paraphrased) so they they could get a good pick. Not something you really want to hear from your franchise $110mil player.
When it becomes obvious that a team isn't going to get you anywhere but an early exit out of the first round (at best) GMs almost always look to start over and blow it up. Frankly I think Washington would probably demand way more than BlazerFanForLife suggests. They'd probably want at least some cap flexibility, and a couple of decent players in return. http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...~2015~1705~851&teams=27~27~27~22~22&te=&cash= I have no idea if this is something like that would be appealing to washington (I suspect not), but I know Thomas has been benched in favor of McGee and it gives a team salary flexibility, that is going to be increasingly cap constrained with Arenas' massive albatross of a contract hanging over them for the next 4 years or so.
The thing is they don't need LaFrentz, after this trade they will have 11 expiring contracts in 2 years. If they aquire LaFrentz they would be trying to make a splash this summer in free agency which wouldn't work for them because of how many contracts they have under contract till the 09/10 season... The Wizards are one team that could end up with 2 great players from the free agent class of 2010. We could add Blake and Songalia to the trade but that would leave the Blazers with only one PG and they would probably have to make a move that would get them a PG this season unless Nate is happy with a PG/SG rotation of Sergio, Rudy, Roy, Webster, Dixon. I know this wouldn't be ideal but Juan has played alright for them so far this year and would be okay for the spot minutes he would get at backup PG. That said we may be putting all our eggs into the basket a little too much with this trade. Blake, Bayless, Oulaw, Ike for Butler and Songalia and Dixon Washington would drop Dee Brown. They would have 11 expiring contracts in 2009/2010 with only Arenas Jamison and Blatche under contract. If i was going along Niko's lines It would look like this... I dont think Washington does the trade without getting Bayless and a replacement for Butler. If Gilbert never returns Bayless will make this trade look twice as good as it really is. http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...5~1705~1784&teams=27~27~27~27~22~22&te=&cash=
You might be on to something there. In any case, this is all just pie-in-the-sky wishfulness, there's really been no indication that Butler is a movable piece, but it sure is fun to speculate.
As much as I would love to get Caron Butler, I just don't think Washington is going to move him. We're only speculating because the Wiz are so bad. I just don't see them trading their one positive in a season of negatives. In fact, at this point I would say that Gilbert is a virtual unknown and Butler is all that they have. How many games has Arenas played in the last two years? The guy has become injury prone and at this juncture I would say he's completely unreliable until proven otherwise. I don't think they would move Butler. Gerald Wallace is a much more realistic target I think.
