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Haywood, Butler officially headed to Dallas

Coup — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:55:27 +0000

As rumored yesterday, the Wizards have agreed to send Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood, two players the Blazers have been rumored to have interest in, to Dallas for Josh Howard and Drew Gooden, with other pieces involved on both sides.

Marc Stein (via Twitter):

Mavs and Wizards have completed their trade call with the league office. Deal will be announced later tonight. Seven-player swap in the end

DAL gets Butler, Haywood and Stevenson as was always the case once teams agreed Friday. WASH gets Josh Howard, Gooden, Q. Ross and Singleton

Marc Spears (via Twitter):

Washington trade of Butler, Haywood and Stevenson to Dallas for Howard, Gooden, Ross and Singleton recently became official, source tells Y!

Considering the Wizards were reported to be wanting Batum and Rudy just for Haywood, it was probably unrealistic Portland would have gotten a good price considering the talent in Howard that Washington got in return. Dallas obviously wins on the talent side of the deal, but this seems like it must be the first half of a move to get rid of Antawn Jamison as well, clear contracts and start all over.

UPDATE: Here’s the full story from Stein. And Kelly Dwyer’s reaction over at Ball Don’t Lie:

Butler can play. He’s had a rough 2009-10, getting used to Flip Saunders’ exacting offense, but the former Heat, Laker, and Wizard has long shown all-around gifts that can fit in alongside dominant players, and dominant personalities. Though his production has declined this season and he turns 30 a month from today, the hope is that Butler can be a clear upgrade from Josh Howard, who was struggling through a decisively subpar season this year.

There’s a bigger element to this trade, however, both in literal and figurative terms. Brendan Haywood has long been criticized for inconsistent play, but at 7-feet tall and in the prime of his career, Haywood is still a starting-quality center that can really turn these Mavericks around. Pared with an all-world playmaker in Jason Kidd, I think you’ll see Haywood surprise a lot of people.

Kelly Dwyer really likes Martell Webster

Coup — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:32:24 +0000

Well, at least enough to list him third on his list of Defensive Players of the Year, behind Ron Artest and Anderson Varejao, for the first two months of the season:

An all-around stopper on a middling defensive team, Webster is a beast on that end.

My support of Martell is no secret, but I’m not sure he’s even been a Top 10 defender much less in the first three. There really aren’t any good enough metrics to quantify defense, but Martell’s defensive rating of 105 doesn’t put him anywhere near the Top 20 in the NBA, though Artest comes in with a rating of 103 himself. What do you think, has Webster been one of the very best defenders this season?

Dwyer on Portland

Coup — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:12:23 +0000

I’ve been getting into the opinion gathering business the last week regarding what Portland should do with the trade market. The last thing the team needs to do is make a panic trade — especially now that they’ve been granted a hardship exception — but the expiring deals of Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw represent the last opportunities to salvage some future assets out of all that cap space last summer. Here’s what I got from the always fantastic Kelly Dwyer in his chat over at Ball Don’t Lie.

Coup: I guess we’re all obliged to start talking trades now. Give me two or three great — non panic trade — targets for Portland. You think they would trade much youth for a near-30 yr old like Butler?

KDonhoops:I think just about any trade would be a panic trade. Honestly, I hate saying this, but, “Portland, your season’s screwed.”

No amount of Butler or Dampier — and I think either would be great deals for those younger expirings — would help enough to make that much difference. There are just too many people hurting. I don’t take much joy in writing that.

Butler would be great if he could be had for expiring deals, but I need to give more thought to what else I would give up to get him. Dampier has an expiring deal himself, which is interesting if Portland wants to grab a big man soon and then have another RLEC to float around at the deadline. Might be easier to move a deal like that before this summer than last.

If you have ideas or thoughts on potential trade targets, leave them in the comments below.