FanHouse CaronButler

Michael Lee of the Washington Post followed up recent Wizards rumors in a piece this morning on the No. 5 pick and Caron Butler. Lee said the 'Zards and Suns discussed an Amar'e Stoudemire trade, but D.C. balked when Butler became a requirement from Phoenix's end.

Washington GM Ernie Grunfeld famously has little interest in keeping No. 5. Phoenix needs to do two things in short order: get younger, and get rid of its (spiritual) question marks up front (Stoudemire and Shaquille O'Neal), one way or the other. So can the Wizards and Suns arrange a deal without involving Butler, Gilbert Arenas or Antawn Jamison?

Ready or not, here Flip comes.

After much discussion, rumor mongering and ballyhoo, Yahoo! Sports reports that the Washington Wizards will make former Pistons and Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders their new head coach, reportedly agreeing to a four-year, $18 million deal.

That's not Yankees money or corporate bailout money, but for the Wizards, that's a pretty hefty chunk of change.

As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.

Only one NBA team can legitimately claim its season ended before it began. Starting center Brendan Haywood, Washington's defensive anchor, tore a wrist ligament during a preseason practice. The injury basically ensured a mediocre defense would be destined for completely awfulness.

But Eddie Jordan's Wizards have always scored efficiently and frequently. Surely, the offense could save Washington. That'd be nice ... except that a month prior, the team's most potent scorer -- Gilbert Arenas -- had another surgery completed on his knee. His return date went from December ... to January ... to post-All Star break ... to Saturday.

You can understand how Washington finds itself at the bottom of the standings.

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

Many people consider the NCAA Tournament to be the biggest sporting event of the year, and that includes NBA players. In this hilarious video we catch up with Wizards star Caron Butler (UConn) as he has a very funny exchange with teammate Nick Young (USC) over their alma maters' chances. But just because you are a basketball player does not mean you are into the tournament, as Andray Blatche admits he is not into "Match Mardness." Also in this video we find out which Wizards player looks like President Obama and which one does not.

Check out the video after the jump.

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

* "Dude will do ANYTHING to win, up to and including going Tony Jaa on Mo Williams. Maybe my new favorite photo." -- this is the city line.

* Andrea Butler, wife of Caron: "I cried tonight," his wife, Andrea Butler, told me. "It was like we were in the Finals. I don't know what happened, I got a little emotional. The whole fourth quarter was so good, I just got really emotional. I was just happy to see the crowd get back into it." -- D.C. Sports Bog.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Brandon Roy brought a thief class for Saturday's game in Paul Allen's basement, and Washington's mages Wizards just couldn't hang. Roy rolled 20 after 20 on his pickpocket attempts, and ended up with a whopping 10 steals in a fairly low-possession game.

Caron Butler, despite good scoring output (31 points), had almost as many turnovers (nine) as the entire Blazers roster (10). To go with his steals, Roy offered 22 points, five rebounds, seven assists and two blocks. Roy, you are overpowered. When will the Dungeon Master take control of this thing?!

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the lig. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Jim O'Brien is the new Don Nelson! Okay, maybe not, but this year's Pacers look an awful lot like Golden State East, giving up more than 107 points a game, second-most in the league only to (wait for it ...) the Warriors. As such, a good performance against this team practically demands an asterisk in the game log.

In other words, congrats on the career-high 43 points, Mehmet Okur, but let's see you do that against a real defense! Fortunately for Memo, he won't be facing a "real" team until the weekend -- the Jazz are in Oklahoma City on Wednesday and Memphis on Friday before taking on the Mavericks in Dallas on Saturday.

The Cavs dropped a close one in Washington Sunday afternoon, thanks mostly to scoring just 11 points in the third quarter. But even so, they found themselves down by two with under 10 seconds to play when LeBron James went with a signature move to the basket for what would have been the tying layup, only to have the referees whistle him for the rare traveling call, which sealed the game for the Wizards. But was it a travel? LeBron certainly didn't think so; take a look for yourself.



The way I saw it, LeBron definitely picked up his dribble before making the step-through, and watching the replay (at about the :50 second mark) you can count the three steps he takes after he picked up the ball.

Not surprisingly, LeBron disagreed with the call, and felt that his 'trademark play' was a perfectly legal maneuver.

Wizards bosses claimed that the early-season replacement of Eddie Jordan with Ed Tapscott came because the franchise management believe the playoffs could still be reached. At 4-23, Washington is now five games behind Charlotte for 14th place in the East. I think we can rule out the playoffs at this point.

Nevertheless, Tapscott is riding his veterans. JaVale McGee and Javaris Crittenton earned DNP-CDs for the Christmas game in Cleveland. Youthful Dominic McGuire didn't get some time to flourish or wilt until not-youthful DeShawn Stevenson requested to be benched. There's no hope for this season, and the team hasn't yet given the kids a chance to show they can be successful next season. Lose-lose, mates.

As such, this rumor from the Washington Post's Ivan Carter makes a load of sense.

They are only whispers but I'm hearing chatter that Gilbert Arenas and the team is seriously pondering whether to bring him back at all this season.

There was a dead certainty that some changes would be occurring in the Washington Wizards' organization following the team's 1-10 start.

And because it seemed unlikely that Ernie Grunfield would fire himself, and it was already too late to start trying to trade Gilbert Arenas or Antawn Jamison and because Caron Butler is the truth ... well, it stood to reason that the first scapegoat would be Eddie Jordan. According to the Post's Wizards Insider, that has now come to fruition.

According to sources familiar with the situation, the Wizards have relieved Coach Eddie Jordan of his duties. Jordan was informed of the decision this morning.

Ed Tapscott, who had carried the title of Director of Player Development but traveled with the team and essentially served as an extra assistant coach, will take over coaching duties, starting with a practice that will begin today at 11 a.m.

Again, I don't know if it's deserving -- Jordan has done a pretty fine job of coaching up what is a quasi-limited roster since he's been in Washington. And additionally, he's currently missing about $110 million worth of said roster ... but yeah, the team is in the basement of a very winnable division, Gil and Brendan Haywood are talking about not coming back this year if the playoffs aren't an option, and someone has to get blamed. If the reports are accurate, looks like that guy is Jordan.