Fall of the Dallas Wizericks

The Dallas Wizericks, of course, are former Washington Wizards Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and Deshawn Stevenson, who were traded midseason to the Dallas Mavericks as part of GM Ernie Grunfeld’s decision to break up the team and get as far under the 2010-11 salary cap as possible.

The trade brought Josh Howard, James Singleton, Quinton Ross and Drew Gooden to Washington, though Gooden was almost immediately shipped out to the Los Angeles Clippers for Al Thornton. With Butler a relatively recent All Star and Haywood having the best season of his career in 2009-10, the trade seemed horribly one-sided at the time. It still seems that way from a talent standpoint, of course, but the Wizards made the deal for financial reasons. The Wiz got a $6 million trade exception as part of the Haywood deal and another $4.5 million trade exception as part of the Al Thornton deal.

You can’t accuse Mavericks owner Mark Cuban of not trying to win a championship. With the arrival of Butler and Haywood [Stevenson has done nothing for two seasons now] many thought Dallas had its strongest team ever, one capable of equalling or exceeding the accomplishments of the 2006 Mavericks team that won the Western Conference and choked lost the NBA Finals in six games to the Miami Heat. Those beliefs were given early credence when Dallas ran off 13 straight wins and the new guys seemed to fit in perfectly with the talented cast Dallas had already assembled.

The Mavs stumbled a bit down the stretch, but nevertheless entered the postseason as the #2 seed in the West and with reason to believe they could knock off the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers. The first round match had Dallas facing a #7 seed and no seven seed had ever toppled a two seed before. However, this seven seed was the San Antonio Spurs, a team that has won four NBA championships in the last 12 years under head coach Gregg Poppovich and star forward Tim Duncan. Despite age and creaky bones, the Spurs jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the series.

That’s when Caron Butler scored 35 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to send the series to a game six in San Antonio. But that was it for Dallas. The Spurs closed out the series and moved on to face the Phoenix Suns in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs. Butler, Haywood and Stevenson had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs…again.

Read more at

http://dcprosportsreport.com/2010/05/03/fall-of-the-dallas-wizericks/