Caron Butler is headed to Dallas. No, not because he has been named an All-Star replacement and it’s not because he’ll be in the Three-Point Shootout (though, the way they picked contestants this year, he could be).
It’s because the Dallas Mavericks and Washington Wizards have officially agreed to a deal that has the Mavericks sending Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross and James Singleton to Washington for Butler, DeShawn Stevenson, and Brendan Haywood.
Butler can change things in the Big D. Josh Howard wasn’t producing at all and found himself out of the starting line-up this year. Now, it is possible Butler will also play off the bench behind Shawn Marion, but he is certainly the better scorer based on his play this season.
Caron averaged 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists in 47 games for the Wizards. While the Wizards have had a terrible season to date, Butler has been solid and is capable of exploding for 25-30 a night and can do so efficiently. Butler can give the Mavs a terrific scoring line-up of Barea-Terry-Butler-Marion-Dirk, relieving some of the pressure on Dirk to score all the time, keeping him fresh for crunch time and the playoffs.
Obviously the addition of Butler is obviously the center piece of this deal for Dallas, but don’t overlook Brendan Haywood. ESPN’s Marc Stein reports that Haywood had to be included in the deal for the Mavs to accept.
Haywood gives Dallas another veteran center that can protect the rim, rebound the basketball and do all the dirty work down low to allow Dirk Nowitzki to play his game outside of the paint. In Washington, Haywood was averaging 10 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks a game.
This deal really doesn’t have a great effect on the Wizards in the grand scheme of things. They get a volume shooter with an attitude problem, a nice veteran rebounder and essentially two contracts. It makes a trade, but the Wiz aren’t going anywhere this season.
However, this does effect one player in particular on the Wizards: Antawn Jamison. Jamison, who was named a But The Game Is On All-Star earlier today, has a lower chance to be dealt now that Washington has saved quite a bit of money with the Butler deal. That impacts Jamison as he may be forced to suffer on a bad Washington team for another season and it also effects any contended that was looking to get him, with Cleveland being the biggest suitor.
