Was it a mistake to trade away Antawn/Caron?

So let's go back to the start of this rebuilding process and look back at the trades of Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison. What we did with these moves was create cap space and set ourselves up for losing. However, we were already losing at the same pace and haven't used any of the cap space we received. In fact, it appears as though we are waiting on Rashard Lewis' contract to expire in order to make a big splash in the free agency pool. However, Caron Butler's contract would have already expired and Jamison's would expire this summer. Assuming we would still have traded away Arenas for Lewis, we would be able to move his expiring contract for valuable pieces which is what I'm assuming management wants to do. We would be in the same position we have been in, except John Wall would have veteran players around him. Now, we likely would have been too good to get Jan Vesely, but honestly we haven't even seen the guy play yet. I understand this is very speculative to say the least but we didn't get anything in return for either of these players, all we did was surround our prized #1 pick in a horrendous losing situation.

As for the few who stand by Ted Leonsis' rebuilding strategy and believe losing is best, the Thunder are an exception. The Mavericks, Lakers, and Celtics (Last 4 NBA champions) were largely built through free agency and trade. The draft is way too much of a guessing process to rely on. If we were going to trade Butler and Jamison, we could have at least gotten some sort of valuable piece in return.