Michael Lee fills in more details from Caron Butler's season of discontent

watching butler this year was really sad. he was so selfish much of the time, forcing shots, trying to drive thru the entire opposing team and other silliness. i thought he had just read too many of his own press clippings, that making the all-star team had gone to his head. from this article is seems more that he was just being a dick.

i’m not one to blame saunders for last year’s performance since much of it was out of his hands. but he should have nailed butler’s butt to the bench until he saw the light. that much was obvious.

still, let’s not forget that butler was a pretty solid citizen in the community before he lost his mind. for that he deserves a lot of credit.

The money quote for me was:
“You had a certain way we was used to playing for a couple of years. Then you had your franchise guy, a guy you needed to be everything he needed to be, coming back, trying to prove a point, show that he was back in a major way. It was just like everybody was on different pages. We was trying to pull it together and frustration and adversity reveals character and you had people speaking out of turn. Basically, it was chaos over there. Now, looking back at it. That was a crazy situation. That was a crazy environment to come to play basketball and keep your head and keep your morale up. Being a guy that’s an emotional force on the court and off the court, that was real frustrating and once [Abe] Pollin passed away, it was open season. I was like, all right, anything can happen.”

Where to begin in analyzing this? First, I guess it is not surprising that someone as close to Eddie Jordan as Butler was/is (their families vacation together) would rebel against a change from Jordan’s system. The fact that everyone was on different pages suggests what we have all known for years, that there was a leadership void, a damning indictment of the captains, Flip, and the organization. The organization needs to address this in the upcoming draft and free agency period. I’m not sure what, “people speaking out of turn” means, but I think it means people weren’t being good enough followers. Also, I’m not sure what, “Being a guy that’s an emotional force,” means, but it suggests that when one of your most vocal leaders wants to lead in a different direction than what the coach intends, crazyiness results. That’s my main takeaway from this article — that a big part of the problem this season is that one of the team’s most vocal leaders wasn’t on the right page. So, perhaps one of Flip’s biggest mistakes this season was not recognizing the problem early on, and either not making Caron a captain, or getting him on the right page. Flip probably came into the situation worrying about getting Gilbert on the right page, only to realize too late that Butler was the volatile one.

Caron probably could’ve handled the situation better, but gererally his perspective on the season seems dead-on. You have a veteran team used to doing things a certain way, you bring in a new coach who wants things done differently, you add a superstar/cornerstone of the franchise coming back from a two-year long injury, and what do you get? Chaos.

I suspect Flip’s system is just wrong for Caron’s style of play. It’s also not unusual for a coach to tailor the system some based on the strengths and weaknesses of the team’s players. I’m not saying Flip should’ve done that, but perhaps the Wizards 09-10 season was destined for disaster, where a player like Caron gets the short end of the stick. That can only be frustrating for him.

The season ended up a big dissappointment. I wouldn’t let Caron’s statements here have any bearing on how we remember his time here in Washington, including the very classy way he said goodbye to the city through his letter to the Washington Post.

I’ve been as sour as anyone on Butler, and that’s dating back to last season, but this article seems to remove any doubt.

1) Butler was selfish. Wanted shots, contracts and to be the focus. Butler got an early contract extension when he arrived and expected a contract extension 2 years early again? What other player in the NBA is afforded that kind of courtesy?
2) Butler was a bad leader. He says it was chaos but wasn’t he the captain?
3) Butler is a loser. Couldn’t adapt to Flip’s system which is very telling because at the end of the season in Dallas there were reports that he couldn’t adapt to Carlisle’s offense either. Truth was, Caron can’t adjust to any offense that wasn’t Ed Tapscott’s “shoot as many times as you want and don’t worry about winning games”.

WITHOUT A DOUBT, this season would have gone differently if Flip had just summarily benched Butler. Not just benched but END of the bench, keep your warmups on. The Haywood/Blatche/Jamison front line would have been great and Arenas was coming around.

I watched every game and early on Caron would come off a screen and be wide open for a shot. He could either A) take the open shot, B) jab jab stutter step pump fake take contested jumper, or C) Drive to the hole on 3 guys and commit a charge or a stupid turnover. He generally did options B and C. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he would not take the open shot. He did this every game. So no, I can’t blame Flip’s system. Flip system got Caron open shots. He just made terrible decisions. Gil’s assist numbers would have probably been up to 10 (another 3 a game) if Caron just took the open shot when he had it. I can see why Gil would be pissed. He would actually run the offense and then Caron would sabatoge it. I may be in the minority that thinks Gil actually played a mostly unselfish (sometimes too unselfish) game this year. It’s like Caron purposely took his time with the shots to make sure Gil didn’t get any credit with the assists.

Caron, you were set to make $20 million over the next two seasons and you were upset that you weren’t getting more? Or that someone else was making more? That was enough for you to put your goals about the team? You’re a moron. Give me $5 million and I’ll never need income again in my life — I mean, at some point it just becomes a number on your financial statements. It’s stupidiculous that someone would let the lack of being guaranteed some extra money that they don’t need cause them to suck at their job, and therefore cost them much more then they would have gained. Wow. Now Dallas wants to unload him? I can’t say I’m surprised.