Last year midseason I'd agree with you. But you really think a guy with a PER this year of 13.3 is worth that much? His stock has absolutely plummeted this year. On top of that, the Wizards are a mess--a .300 record even this early in the year is a disaster when you've got Arenas back and Jamison having a career season. They're paying $93 mil this year and next to the big three. Yikes. Meanwhile, Fernandez wound up setting a record for threes for a rookie, and both Rudy and Batum had really nice summers in the Euros. They're both injured, which certainly hurts their value, but they also aren't 29 like Butler. Blake + Outlaw + Fernandez isn't such a bad deal. Clears out about $8 mil in contracts, and Rudy gives them a promising young back court teammate for Arenas. I doubt such a deal would happen, though. KP doesn't seem to do these kind of midseason deals. At the least, we'd need to wait for Rudy to prove he was recovered from injury.
I was kind of amazed the other night when I watched the Wizards, right now Arenas is really bad. Really bad. The only guy whose game isn't being hurt by Arenas right now is Jamison, and that is because he is playing some unreal basketball right now. Pretty much just getting the ball and taking it upon himself to do something with it.
I agree. I wish we could clone them. Imagine a long, ball handling, pure shooter who D's up like a mutha. If we trade both, we lose our best pure shooter and our best perimeter defender.
Butler is killing the Warriors tonight. He's mostly doing it on post up and Iso plays - maybe he's our guy?
I guess I should have clarified that. Butler was posting up tonight like Roy does. He's still 15' away from the basket and then he faces up . . . it's not like he was down in the blocks. I'm well aware we don't do that.
I love Butler, but what would you give up for him? I'd give up Rudy in addition to the expirings (Blake/Outlaw). And/or Miller, if Washington would like to push Arenas to shooting guard (though that would then make Rudy less useful to them). But I wouldn't want to give up more than that. I don't know that that would get the job done. And that would be trading 2-3 healthy players for one. No use building a great starting five if the bench is filled out with fans from the stands. So it seems pretty hard to put together a deal that makes sense.
Career fga/36 minutes Outlaw 13.8 Butler 13.7 Outlaw is no more a volume scorer than Caron Butler. I'm not at all saying I believe Outlaw is better than Butler, so the 'we'll have to agree to disagree' statement is a little extreme. I believe that Butler is maybe 5% better than Outlaw. It's not like we're comparing Magic Johnson to John Crotty. Butler and Outlaw are in the same strata of players. Put Outlaw on a crap team and give him 40 minutes a night and he's a borderline all star too. If what the Wiz value is ending contracts, then we are giving them great value with a guy who puts up similar numbers and can be re-signed to a very reasonable contract after the season is over (thanks in large part to the public perception that Outlaw isn't even CLOSE to as good as Butler) plus another ending contract in Steve Blake plus maybe a pick or a marginal prospect like Pendergraph. All I'm saying is Butler, at 30 years of age, is nowhere near worth 25 year old Outlaw plus 24 year old Fernandez plus 21 year old Batum, as was suggested earlier.
Maxiep, I don't think you have to agree to disagree here, I think you are correct in your assumption. I think almost everyone outside of Blazer land would agree that Butler has far more value than Travis Outlaw. I also agree with your proposed trade. That MAY be what we have to give up, though hopefully Blake and Outlaw (both expirings) can be a big part of any trade and save us from needing to trade Batum/Bayless/Joel/core. As for my thoughts, I'd rather try and get Gerald Wallace, as I think he is that scrappy (lol), dirty work, rebounding, clean up guy that we desperately need. But Butler isn't bad. Blake or Miller would have to be included in any trade, IMO.
Sounds like most of us would be willing to trade Blake/Outlaw/Rudy, but that might not be enough. Adding Batum is too high of a price to pay, but is probably what the Wiz want. I wonder if adding our 2010 pick with the former would be enough? Still probably not but that's the offfer I'd leave on the table. If the Wiz can't get any better offers they would consider it, giving up more value would make the trade a lateral move thus something I'd rather see us pass up.
The difference is that one is good enough to be out on the floor for 36 minutes a game, and one is not. Throw up all the stats you want. Butler is way better than Outlaw.
