Hooped Up

Mavericks president: We’re ready to compete against Lakers
A seven-player weekend trade brought two-time All-Star guard Caron Butler, 7-foot center Brendan Haywood and guard DeShawn Stevenson to Dallas from Washington. Often promising and disappointing Josh Howard was sent with Drew Gooden and two others to the Wizards.

“This gives us a real chance to do some damage in the West,” said Donnie Nelson, the Mavericks’ president of basketball operations. “It’s like a nuclear arms race out here. From top to bottom, there’s 11 that look like they’re viable and eight that are going to make it. But we feel [the trade] gives us a real chance to take this next step.’

“Now I don’t know how many of you out there are going to pick us in a seven-game series against the Lakers, but in our opinion the guys in that locker room, we’re ready to lock horns with anybody. We feel like this solidifies us a little bit.”
Dallas Morning News

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The Dallas Mavericks acquired Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood from Washington on Saturday, a seven-player deal that strengthens them for a playoff run and signals the breakup of a disappointing Wizards team.

The Mavericks dealt forwards Josh Howard and Drew Gooden, and two other players to the Wizards. Dallas also got guard DeShawn Stevenson and cash considerations. Read More »

The glimmer in the eye Knicks GM Donnie Walsh aka Tracy McGrady, is still bright and with the mid-season trade deadline fast approaching the Knicks are kicking the tires on a complex, three-team deal that would send T-Mac to the New York Knicks, according to Yahoo! Sports.

The deal would have the Washington Wizards moving Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood to the Houston Rockets. The Knicks sending  Al Harrington to the Wizards, plus another player, possible draft picks and cash to make this deal fly.

This season Tracy McGrady is the highest paid player in the NBA earning an estimated $23 million per year.

Another van glorious season of NBA basketball is about to begin and Hooped Up does a quick and dirty preview of all 30 clubs.

When healthy, the trio of Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison is deadly! But make no mistake, the one ingredient the Wizards need in their wins cake is the $111 million dollar man known as the Hibachi. Read More »

The Wizards’ roster now has 14 players, and Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld said he doesn’t expect to make any more roster changes between now and training camp. “In all likelihood, these are the players we are going into camp with, unless something very interesting comes along from a trade standpoint,” Grunfeld said. “I’m always motivated to put the best possible team out there. Last year was the toughest year of my professional career as a general manager. It was very hard for everybody in our organization. We knew what the reasons were for the season, but it didn’t make it any easier. We’re excited about this upcoming season and we’re probably as talented as we’ve been since we’ve been here, for sure.”

Washington Post

The Celtics had a horrible (by their standards) west coast road swing and they’re now back at home, ready to rip a team apart like warm bread. Enter the second worse team in the league the Wizards, and a healthy Caron Butler who is expected to be a go tonight.  So the good news here is that Butler’s healthy and the bad news is that the Wizards are going to be a fresh baguette tonight. It should be a delicious game.

“After missing the last three games because of a sprained left ankle, Wizards forward Caron Butler expects to play tonight when Washington visits Boston. 

Butler is the team’s leading scorer (21 points per game) and is the only player in the league other than Cleveland’s LeBron James averaging at least 20 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.”

Ever wonder what tracks motivate your favorite NBA stars? Well your in luck, and you’ll be surprised…in that order.  To commemorate the start of the new NBA season, Rhapsody asked this very question to a few NBA players and here are the best (and I mean worst) songs selected by the bunch. They also explain why they like the songs they have choose. This list is ugly like and Anthony Mason free-throw attempt and if you thought *NSYNC was dead, you clearly haven’t talked to Greg Oden.

Greg Oden’s Playlist - *NSYNC, “Bye Bye Bye” 
Oden just loves the boy bands! 
 ”I started listening to it one day. Then one of my boys came in the car and I forgot I had it in and it came on. Then he was like, ‘Yeah this was the joint back in the day. [Laughs.]” Read More »

Big Tigger’s 7th Annual Celebrity Classic brings the celebrities out, and the dancer in Caron Butler out too. 

Check out photos of this event over at DC Fab.  Oh ya, Melyssa Ford was in the house looking very Melyssa Fordish.

Mike Bibby
Like fellow NBA star LeBron James, Bibby has been known to nervously bite and chew his nails during games. When relegated to the bench for a breather during games with the Sacramento Kings, Bibby would obsessively pick at his nails until he stumbled across a better solution: using fingernail clippers on the bench. The clippers became his superstition, and whenever Bibby came to the bench for timeouts, someone would hand him a set so he could go to work on his nails.

Caron Butler
When most of us want a glass of something heavily caffeinated that fluoresces green, we can just reach for a Mountain Dew. Sadly for Washington Wizards’ All-Star small forward Caron Butler, he can’t do the Dew whenever he wants anymore. As Butler told Dan Steinberg of the fantastic D.C. Sports Bog, he would guzzle a two-liter bottle of the sugary soda before and during every game dating back to his All-American career at the University of Connecticut. Butler would throw down half the bottle before the game, then finish it off at halftime. That is, until the Wizards clamped down and forced him to switch to a more traditional sports drink, water.

Jason Terry
Bibby and Terry, college teammates at Arizona, started another odd superstition while playing for the Wildcats. The restless pair slept in the uniform shorts the night before each Arizona game on the logic that it would make the game feel like it was starting sooner. When Terry broke into the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks, he decided to start wearing the shorts of the next day’s opponent, instead. This ritual is fairly tenuous, though, as it requires Terry to procure a pair of uniform shorts from each opposing NBA team. Although his network of connections with equipment managers and former teammates has helped him out, he had to wear Mavericks shorts before each game of the 2006 NBA Finals since he couldn’t find a pair of Heat trunks.