Revisiting the Wizards’ disastrous Richard Hamilton - Jerry Stackhouse trade

When Jerry Stackhouse isn’t busy with his work as an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors, he maintains a pretty active an interesting Twitter account. On Friday he retweeted a tweet that featured this video featuring highlights from a performance in 2001 where he scored 28 points against the Washington Wizards.

What makes the video and the tweet he RTed particularly interesting is that they’re both titled “Jerry Stackhouse Cooks Richard Hamilton for 28 points in 27 minutes”. As you’ll see, the title is fairly accurate:

Of course, the irony here is that Stackhouse and Hamilton were traded for each other less than a year later, as Michael Jordan swapped out the developing Hamilton for Stackhouse, who was in his prime. Well, at least Stackhouse was supposed to be in his prime. As it turned out, he was probably a little past it when he arrived in Washington. His efficiency dipped playing alongside Michael Jordan, and then fell off a cliff the following season after Jordan retired and the team brought in Gilbert Arenas. At the end of that season, the Wizards packaged him, the fifth overall pick, and some other pieces in a deal to acquire Antawn Jamison.

Of course, things went much better for Hamilton and the Pistons. He teamed up with Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace (two other players who Washington traded before their prime) to make the Pistons into one of the best teams of the decade. Hamilton was a key part of the Pistons’ title run in 2004, and made three All-Star appearances during Detroit’s extended run as one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

It’s unclear if Stackhouse retweeted the video as some sort of a self-justification for the trade or if he was just trying to relive the good times. But either way, he can at least take pride in how long he lasted in the league after that performance in 2001. For all the talk about how Stackhouse was the older player traded, he lasted in the league until 2013, the same season Richard Hamilton last played in the NBA.