At least according to Caron Butler. The Wizards’ best player and crab dribble adviser recently came out taking a shot at the rest of the Eastern Conference:

“Healthy, we’re the best team in the Eastern Conference. That’s how I feel. Hands down, we’re the best team in the Eastern Conference if healthy….I feel that strongly. I feel like we’re the best team in the Eastern Conference. If healthy, we’re the best team in the Eastern Conference.”

So, if you didn’t get that the first time, if healthy, the Wizards are the best team in the East. Got it. Although I think that the Wizards are more than capable of making the playoffs (and certainly winning more than 19 games), I would be delusional to think that we can win an NBA championship this year.

The biggest problem is that we do not have that All-Star center. Maybe I’m off base, but you don’t need a dominant center to win a championship or even make the playoffs. Just to use the 2009 NBA Finals to illustrate my point, Gasol is a productive, albeit physically underwhelming player. Bynum isn’t there yet (he may not ever). Not even the “Man of Steel” could bring 14.5 pounds of championship hardware to Orlando. However, the Wiz do have decent production coming from a former Tarheel in Haywood and great potential from now 2nd year player JaVale McGee. Though we’re undersized, both are seven footers who can play the complimentary role to our abundance of shooters.

Haywood, while confident, seems to have his head screwed on a little tighter than Caron. He said,

“I rank us fourth. I really do. I mean, healthy I would like to say higher than that, but just out of respect for what Boston, Orlando and Cleveland has done, I’m gonna rank us fourth, right behind them. Healthy, I think we can battle with anybody, but just out of respect for what they’ve done, and the fact that we won 19 games last year, I’m gonna say we’re fourth. We’re fourth right now…You look at the facts, we have all the ingredients: we have the superstars, we have the role players, we have a great coach in Flip Saunders with great experience, I think we’ve upgraded. So at the end of the day, we have what it takes to compete against an Orlando–if healthy. Our problem has been health.”

I’ll happily buy that stock. Haywood’s right. Gilbert Arenas should be able to jump off his mountain of cash and get back on the court, Antawn is still a Wizard, Caron is a beast, and Nick Young is developing nicely.

Unlike Michael Wilbon, I loved the trade for Mike Miller and Randy Foye. Without the chance to add Blake Griffin, I didn’t mind trading away the fifth pick, Etan Thomas (turd), Songaila (hardworker, but Michael Lee of The Washington Post wrote “he can’t jump over the morning paper”), Pecherov (addition by subtraction) to the Timberwolves. And yes, I do realize that Ricky Rubio was still available at pick 5.

There seems to be a lot of excitement in Penn Quarter, obviously helped by the fact that Flip Saunders’ is now driving our basketball broomstick. Now if only we could get the Birdman to flap his wings in the capital city.

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1. NBA: Major Moves – Good or Bad?
2. NBA Rumors: Miami Ready to Contend?
3. Outside the Box: Hedo and Kidd