"This was a season in which Caron Butler had to accept some abrupt endings, the latest coming when the Dallas Mavericks, a team purportedly built for a championship run, became the first No. 2 seed to lose a seven-game series in the first round. But the first one came when his tenure with the Washington Wizards came to an end after 4 1/2 years with the team. Butler struggled to find a home in the NBA early in his career, as he was traded twice in his first three seasons. But he quickly attached himself to Washington, purchasing a home in Virginia even before President Ernie Grunfeld handed him a five-year, $50 million contract extension in October 2005. He made two all-star teams and three playoff appearances in his time with the Wizards. But he realized that change was bound to come on Jan. 6 in Cleveland, when NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended Gilbert Arenas indefinitely after he brought guns into the Wizards' locker room -- which effectively ended any chance of turning around an already miserable campaign. "I knew it was over that day," Butler said recently, pausing to reflect on the Wizards' lost season while his primary focus was attempting to help the Mavericks defeat the San Antonio Spurs. Six weeks after that game in Cleveland, Butler was dealt to Dallas in a trade that marked the end of the franchise's investment in the all-star trio of Arenas, Butler and Antawn Jamison, who was shipped to Cleveland four days later. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/03/AR2010050304221.html
