Apparently Otis Smith is a big pal of Arenas, and Orlando is therefore the most likely spot for Arenas if his contract is not voided. Add in an underperforming Rashard Lewis, a Washington team desperate to shed as much salary as possible and a massive expiring McGrady contract, and you have this. It makes too much sense NOT to happen. Washington: sheds a BOATLOAD of salary and gets rid of Arenas as well. The cost is Caron Butler, but them's the breaks. Orlando: gets Arenas, shakes up a disappointing team, and manages to offload Lewis, whose hugely bloated salary was only forgotten because of the title run. The Magic actually played better without him and you have Ryan Anderson to do the same thing. Gooden is insurance, and he's already worn out his welcome in Dallas. Dallas: the only place I could think of that might take on Lewis. It's a gamble, but they've been playing great when they play smallball and a front line of Lewis, Marion and Nowitzki has everything (sort of). Oberto is for when smallball really isn't working. Houston: gets Butler for McGrady, plus an actual center who can start now and make sure Yao doesn't have to overexert himself should he come back.
Only problem is Dallas loses their 2 centers, and the replacement is Oberto. Dirk would have to play quite a bit of 5, and have a logjam at 3/4 positions.
Doesn't sound like that would be a bad thing: I don't see the Logjam: they would have Lewis and Marion at the 3 and 4. Who else? Yes, Dirk would play a lot of 5, but so what? The Raptors just demolished the Mavs with Bargnani at C.
Josh Howard plays a lot of 3, so you have 3 players rotating between that spot in Marion, Howard and Lewis. If you then move Marion and Lewis down to the 4, it's between Dirk, Lewis, and Marion. So between those 2 spots, you have 4 people demanding a ton of minutes. You could move Howard to the 2, but there you have Roddy, JET, and Barea (who all split time at the 1), but still, that's a lot of people sharing sharing SG, SF, and PF, with no real center. That's only counting people who get regular PT (with the exception of Roddy). Then you have Najera who plays mostly 3/4 and some 5, and Tim Thomas who plays 3/4. Of all the players, only 2 players can play some 5, and even then it's Dirk and Najera, whom I don't trust guarding Dwight, Shaq, Bynum/Gasol, etc. Oberto is not a starter, and also can't handle the dominant bigs. In recent memory, no team who has won a championship was without a real center; Perkins, Gasol (who some argue is a PF, but he possesses many qualities of a C), Duncan, Shaq. As for Bargnani, just because the Raptors beat the Mavs doesn't mean it's OK to not have an established real center. There have been numerous occasions where real big men have dominated the Raptors. Not to mention it was 1 game. If that is how you will present your argument, then I can say that because Dallas lost to the Raptors, that they have no shot at the title because the Raptors are a poor team. And the fact that your quote is 1 person's opinion doesn't support anything either.
