Spurs of the Moment

The Washington Wizards, desperate to turn over probably their entire roster after the Agent Negative 80 Million fiasco, completed a seven-player trade with the Dallas Mavericks today. That’s not a big deal until you realize that the Mavericks just got a whole lot better. The Wizards gave up Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, and DeShawn Stevenson for a package of Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross, and James Singleton.

The trade kind of works out for the Wiz since they get to dump DeShawn Stevenson, the only player on the team significantly dumber than Arenas. Other than that they aren’t getting much. The Mavs unloaded the ever-moronic Josh Howard, as well as bench-warmers Ross and Singleton. Drew Gooden has played well, but is not exactly an upgrade over Haywood. Actually, Haywood is a better rebounder and defender. So really the main thing the Wiz accomplished was acquiring an extra $8 million in expiring contracts. Not too bad I guess.

The Mavericks came up though. No more of the weed-smoking, drag-racing, anthem-bashing, always-injured Josh Howard. They nix two scrubs who weren’t doing anything anyway, and they upgrade at Shooting Guard and Center. If Haywood doesn’t start before the end of the month then Rick Carlisle is an idiot. Jason Terry has already agreed to go back to the sixth man role to make room for Butler. Hmmm, an upgrade at two key positions and an unselfish sixth-man like Jason Terry? The Mavs just got real dangerous.

Coach Popovich needs to stop fooling around and at least try the Spurs best players in the starting lineup. Not to mention find a good trade out there, because with the way the Spurs have played this season, getting to the playoffs would be a major accomplishment, let alone winning a playoff series.

The Lakers are still the team to beat, but Dallas’s lineup of Haywood, Dirk, Marion, Butler, Kidd, and Terry off the bench is going to be problematic to say the least. If only RJ would step up already… oh, and the Spurs don’t seem to be in the Amare’ Stoudemire hunt anymore either, so I don’t know what’s going to happen to improve things in San Antonio this week. Maybe nothing.

Crap.