Recently it's been rumored that the Washington Wizards are interested in trading former All-Star Caron Butler for longtime Chicago Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich.
While Washington star guard Gilbert Arenas has the team reminiscing about past mascots, the Wizards have began openly talking about dumping a star player in order to get some sort of order back to such a distraught organization.
Butler and current leading scorer Antawn Jamison have both been rumored to be on the trading block as long as the Wizards can find some guys that don't like to shoot, per se.
And what better person and leader is there to try to organize a team than Kirk Hinrich?
Throughout his time with the Bulls, he has played with all kinds of personalities and egos including Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Larry Hughes, and Ben Wallace.
He's been through five head coaches (including Pete Myers' three games).
After five consistent seasons that saw him average double digits in points and at least six assists per game, he was reduced to sitting the bench behind 2008 top overall pick Derrick Rose, and yet not a peep was made about the demotion.
Kirk Hinrich is a class act, a very good leader, and a consistent floor general.
He's been through coaching changes, personnel changes, and position changes, but he still goes out and gives his all every time he gets on the court.
Honestly, it'd be sad to lose a player like Captain Kirk, but for an extreme talent like Caron Butler, I think that Gar Forman has to pull the trigger on this one.
Although he's been injury-prone in his career, it may just be the Washington, D.C. Verizon Center, where Wizards have been falling quicker than Andres Nocioni on the block.
In his three seasons away from Washington (two with Miami and one with the Lakers), Butler averaged 74 games a season while playing only slightly less minutes than in his years with the Wizards.
Over his entire seven-plus seasons in the league, he's averaged 16.4 points per game on 44.2 percent shooting from the field.
And although he wouldn't provide much of a three-point threat (31.5 percent for his career behind the arc), he would allow a struggling John Salmons to move out of the starting lineup, while creating one of the biggest and most athletic starting five in the Eastern Conference.
A line-up including Butler (6'7"), Luol Deng (6'8"), Tyrus Thomas (6'9") or Taj Gibson (6'9") and Joakim Noah (6'11") would provide a big and lengthy team whose defensive intensity could rival that of the Jerry Sloan-era Bulls.
The addition of Butler would also provide more offense to a team that ranks near-to-last in the league in scoring.
In fact, the versatility that he would bring to the Bulls, I'd be willing to even give up a draft pick along with Hinrich for the former All-Star.
After all, with an addition like Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire in the off-season to add to the line-up featuring stars like Derrick Rose and Butler, the Bulls could finally get that championship-contender tag they've been lacking for the past decade.
