Sometimes it's fun to rewrite history.
Just ask Oliver Stone.
So what if the Wizards had never traded Devin Harris to the Mavericks for Antawn Jamison?
How would the Wizards have fared since 2004 and how would they be right now? It's anybody guess what would have been, but what could be?
That's an attractive proposition.
A true point guard in a town that hasn't had one since Rod Strickland left during the 2000-'01 season?
A lineup of Harris, Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, insert PF here, and JaVale McGee?
Taking away Antawn Jamison is almost heretical. He's been the one rock in a lineup full of shredded ligaments and cartilage since the team acquired him. He's a solid citizen, a tremendous teammate and a heckuva offensive player.
But he's a small forward in a power forward's body, and hardly a rare commodity in today's basketball marketplace.
An electrifying point guard, meanwhile, is tough to come by.
A Devin Harris-powered Wizards could have a completely different consistency to them. It would free up Arenas to play more off the ball, if he ever gets healthy, and give the team the one thing it most sorely needs -- a ball distributer.
It also would have given the Wizards the opportunity to part ways with Arenas, which until the team gets the star on the court, seems more and more attractive considering the crop of free agents in two seasons.While it's hard to, and unfair to condemn the injured, it just feels like locking up Arenas for what the Wizards did was a crippling move. It seemed more like the Knicks locking Allan Houston in the late '90s than it did the T-Wolves locking up Kevin Garnett. Arenas is a tremendous player when healthy, but so much of what he does relies on his knees. And those knees are in serious jeopardy of never being fully healthy. Had the Wizards been in control of Devin Harris, the pressure may not have been there to sign Arenas and the team could have enjoyed cap flexibility over the next half dozen years. Particularly as someone like Carmelo Anthony, a Baltimore native, enters the free-agent market.
It's always easy to go back and muddle with history. But with each passing game it seems like the Wizards did the cardinal sin in basketball -- traded away a young point guard for an aging star forward.
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You have to remember that the Wizards had an ingrained culture of losing at that time. Stackhouse was their best player and he was very unhappy as a Wizard. The team was dysfunctional. Asking a rookie to turn this franchise around(especially a rookie that's just become borderline all-star quality this year) is asking a lot.
Harris wasn't the only elite guard that the Wizards gave away in that time period. They also traded away a young Rip Hamilton for an over-the-hill Mitch Richmond because Rip just wasn't able to be a great second option in his third year. If they had kept Harris, they just would have wasted him also.
I think Dallas definetely got more talent from the trade. Stackhouse may not be as good as Jamison, but they were both pretty good sixth men. But the Wizards needed Jamison just so they could have a leader who was used to winning. The way I see it, Dallas got the better deal, but Washington needed it more. It was a great trade for both teams.