[Ex-Wizard Brendan Haywood is heading to the NBA Finals, and now he's finagled two hats to prove it.]

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

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Yes, odd post title/combination of folks, but totally true.

I may have soured on Caron Butler as a basketball player as a result of the 2009-10 season (if you want to know why, here are some links), and that could ever so slightly reflect on perceptions of his personality.

But none of that skews from the fact that Butler is a good guy, a stand up person who’s never forgotten to represent where he’s from, whether it be his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin or his adopted hometown of Washington, DC. He concocted “DC, stand up!”, and just because he plays for a different team now, it doesn’t mean the phrase should be retired.

Caron was always glad to be apart of and give back to his community. In particular, he’s a big advocate of bicycle riding, including holding Bike Brigades in the Summer and giveaways at Christmas … and it’s all for the kids. He’s the Santa Claus of bikes.

But let’s not digress too far from the title of this post. Next Monday, June 7th, starting at 9:30 am, Caron will be back in the District of Columbia to promote cycling and bike advocacy by riding with the Crown Prince of Denmark (Frederick Andre Henrik) and a couple Members of Congress (Representative James Oberstar, D-MN and Representative Thomas Petri, R-WI).

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People talk about the fall of Agent Zero, how about the fall of Tuff Juice?

Mike Prada of Bullets Forever writes “the” definitive piece on Caron Butler’s 2009-10 season, but with some historical perspective as well. Below I’ve put a great quote from the article, but the whole thing, “Caron Butler was a big part of the problem with the 2009/10 Wizards,” is much longer and is really a must-read.

So what’s the theme of Caron Butler’s season?  It’s very hard to function when you’re dogged by resentment and dreams of personal success.  Butler has moved on to Dallas, where he’s now shooting more than Dirk Nowitzki and generally wasting possessions like he did in DC.  His game has declined with age, sure, much like other 29-year olds who have been as injury-prone as him.

But this is not your typical decline.  Much like Kevin Garnett, Butler has declined while kicking and screaming about the wonder days that were.  He’s the last person to accept the fact that he isn’t the player he once was.  He never figured it out in DC and he doesn’t appear to have figured it out in Dallas.  Worse, his decline was accelerated by lingering resentment of his co-star that only grew when that co-star started missing games.  That co-star is now on a different team, but Butler still stubbornly pushes on, trying to show he deserved his past status.

And really, this is a story about how precious one’s state of mind is in this game.  Butler went from being one of the league’s most unselfish and professional players to one with too big an opinion of himself that resented his teammates.  It was a dramatic shift and it couldn’t have happened to a more unexpected guy.  If it can happen to Butler, it can happen to anyone.

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File 1998 / Racine Journal Times

Back on January 16th, the Wizards beat the visiting Sacramento Kings and propelled their record to 13-26. The next day, a Sunday, the team would get a much needed day off before their match-up against the Portland Trailblazers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Monday.

Caron Butler in particular said he would enjoy having Sunday off because that meant he would be able to watch his “childhood hero,” Brett Favre, play one of his “good friends,” Tony Romo, in the NFL Playoffs.

Butler had trouble choosing who he would root for … although, his “shot out” to Romo (video below) seemed to indicate, in my opinion, that he was pulling for old man Favre. In any case, the Vikings won …  surely Caron would have been happy regardless, and Redskins fans were definitely happy.

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Today the Wizards signed Shaun Livingston to a 10-day contract. Yes, that Shaun Livingston. The once Magic Johnson-esque prodigy who devastatingly injured his knee in just his third season in the NBA. On February 26, 2007 at the 8:10 mark of the first quarter, Livingston went up for a fast-break layup and came down awkwardly on his left leg, tearing his ACL, PCL, MCL and lateral meniscus. He also dislocated his patella and tibia/femoral. Ridiculously painful sounding doesn’t even come close to describing. Seeing it happen is even worse. I’m not going to even link the video.

But get this weird, connected sh*t. Not a week after Livingston’s injury, on April 4, 2007, Gilbert Arenas originally injured his knee against Gerald Wallace and the Charlotte Bobcats. Guess who Livingston’s then team, the Los Angeles Clippers, were playing on his fateful night. You guess it, the Charlotte Bobcats.

Video evidence confirms that at the time of Shaun’s injury, Wallace was on the court, but on the other end — remember, it was a fast-break opportunity for the Clippers. But do not forget that Wallace was on the court making contract with Josh Howard when he originally injured his ankle in 2008.

It would be really weird if Howard suffered his recent knee injury against the Bobcats and not the Chicago Bulls. However, guess who checked in for Livingston after he got hurt? Wizards assistant coach Sam Cassell. Exactly. Weird sh*t.

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I’ve been fighting some inner demons when it comes to Caron Butler. I used to like me some Gilbert Arenas, but Tuff Juice was my favorite Wizard. This year that changed.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”, “Pile on Caron” type of piece. I still like the guy. Simply put, he’s an admirable human being, much less factoring what he has accomplished in making it from Racine, Wisconsin to the best basketball league in the world in the first place.

As unfathomably tragic as this entire Wizards 2009-10 season has been, the microcosm of Butler’s woes has left more of a bad taste in my mouth than anything else, harming his legacy in my opinion. But perhaps I’m being a tad dramatic and this is something I should just get over.

Still, I can’t help but thinking mostly about Butler when I hear Flip Saunders talk of trust, and a previous lack thereof, or Ernie Grunfeld talk of selfish basketball. And I know nothing can, nor should, be totally blamed on Caron — I mean, Antawn Jamison’s assists per 36 minutes was lower than Nick Young’s for crying out loud — but the night where Butler splashed his Rogue Tuff Juice all over the court came with high consequences of negative opinion.

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{flickr/Keith Allison}

I’ve written about Caron Butler and Josh Howard being different players off the court. But what about on the court? To get the best perspective, I turned to Rob Mahoney of the ESPN TrueHoop Network Dallas Mavericks blog, The Two Man Game. In addition to his Mavs blog, Rob does great work all over the internet, including his contributions to Hardwood Paroxysm and NBC’s Pro Basketball Talk.

Below is the question I asked Rob about Howard and his answer, and then my response to his question about Butler.

Tell me about Josh Howard. I know about all of his off-court stuff. I know about some of his “can’t control what the ball do” statements regarding on-court stuff. I know about a debate between you and Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com over whether Cuban and the Mavs were coddling/babying Howard too much. Any other reasons why Howard fell so far from grace in Dallas? Did you get any indication that he was a disturbance in the locker room? Or can his down year mostly be attributed to injury issues? The Wizards likely see J-Ho as just an expiring contract, but he certainly will play. How healthy is he now? How motivated do you think he will be to contribute to his new, yet very, very bad, team?

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Sorry for the long title, but there’s a decent bit to cover here.

The Edict Under Which Ernie Grunfeld Works

We already know Mark Cuban is a pretty smart dude. To get that rich, you gotta be. But we never figured he was smart enough to pull one over on Ernie Grunfeld, the man who spent years honing his trade in the Big Apple. Not only did Cuban (and Mavs GM Donnie Nelson I suppose) get everything they ever dreamed of in a trade with Washington, but they also got the Wizards to pay them “cash considerations,” and they didn’t have to send the Wizards their trade exception in exchange for Fabricio Oberto, as was supposedly discussed.

If you’re the Wizards ownership in limbo, guess you gotta spend money and give away value to save money, perhaps for the sale of the team. With part of potential majority owner Ted Leonsis’ ’10-Point Rebuilding Plan’ being to always seek a “pick and a prospect,” we now have some insight that, perhaps, Grunfeld was working under edict of the Abe Pollin estate to cut costs no matter how much it might set the franchise back in the future. Abe’s dream of his team winning another championship has been put to rest, now the Washington basketball patriarch’s squad could be being dismantled just to appease the financial gain of those he left behind.

Sorry Wizards fans, the legacy of Abe Pollin still haunts the franchise. Not until Leonsis takes over can you rest assured that the team you love will be firmly headed in a positive direction, or at least open with fans on that direction, which would likely sooth baffled impatience in these current trying times.

Mark Cuban, a brilliant cat he sure seems like right now. But he’s also a goober. You know, the type who hams it up beyond necessity while being unfunny and cutesy enough to make you roll your eyes and think, “this” guy. Some of this is evidenced in a video interview Cuban did with Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. Sure, Cuban is probably a nice man, but he’s also annoying with a kitschy style of charm. Good for him, I suppose. He’s rich and most of us aren’t. He wins. Read more »

Two of the three below are gone, the third on this Wizards Mount Rushmore might be gone by President’s Day. And that would make not one, but two banners needing to be removed from the 6th Street facade of the Verizon Center in 2010.

“Character, Commitment, Connection”

-Wizards 2009-2010 Season Motto

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Chris Webber had a fair share troubles here in D.C., among other places. He once was caught with marijuana and pepper-sprayed by a cop for refusing to get out of his car on his way to practice as a Washington Wizard. Both his high school and college have removed memories he helped make from their record books because he took money from a Michigan booster as an eighth grader and beyond. Webber and Allen Iverson, although injured and not expected to play, didn’t even show up to Fan Appreciation Night on the Philadelphia 76ers’ last game of the 2005-06 season. He was once a spokesperson for FILA. He will be forever associated with the “Timeout.” He used to date that crazy lady Tyra Banks. All bad things. Well, perhaps not the bedding of Tyra Banks part. Webber was once featured on a large mural in D.C.’s Chinatown that stayed long past its welcome.

But now he is a television studio analyst, and a pretty good one if you ask me. When you’ve got personality, your sketchy past can be dimmed. Just look at Marv Albert, he got caught biting chicks, participated in two-guy, one-girl three-ways, and forced a woman to perform oral sex on him as if he were a white Ruben Patterson.

In any case, when I heard Tuesday night’s Wizards-Lakers game was elected to show on NBA TV’s “Fan Night,” I prepared myself for how the team would be trashed by Webber and co-analyst Kevin McHale (who probably wouldn’t be too harsh since he’s boys with Flip Saunders).

Webber pulled no punches, starting with calling Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison selfish. Read more »