Butler Feeling Right at Home With Wizards
After Two Trades, Forward Set for Another Playoff Run

By Ivan Carter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006

Washington Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan knew he had something special in Caron Butler on Nov. 2, when the Wizards opened the regular season with a 99-96 victory at Toronto.

Right after the tense win, which wasn't sealed until Raptors guard Jalen Rose missed a three-pointer at the buzzer, Butler burst into the locker room and yelled, "I haven't won in a month!"

The moment was telling for Jordan, particularly because Butler came off the bench that night, as he would for the season's first 22 games. Though he wasn't thrilled about being a sixth man after starting during his first three seasons with the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers, Butler accepted his role without complaint and focused on helping his team win games.

That's not something Butler did much of with the Lakers last season. The team went 1-10 in the month of April, finished 34-48 and missed the playoffs.

"He was so happy to win after losing last season, he just yelled it out," Jordan recalled. "When I heard him say that, I said, 'I got him now, he'll do anything.' Caron is very coachable. He respects coaching authority and he accepts responsibility and I love coaching him."

Wizards fans are learning to love Butler just as much as Jordan, who made the 6-foot-7 forward a starter at Denver on Dec. 21 and has seen his team go 33-21 with Butler in the starting lineup.

When Butler's name was announced before last Sunday's crucial home game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, after he had missed five games with a sprained right thumb, the crowd of 18,405 erupted with a loud ovation.

After Butler scored 21 points with eight rebounds and four steals in leading the Wizards to a playoff-clinching win, forward Antawn Jamison said of Butler's impact: "We're whole again. We got our glue back."

With Butler healthy, the Wizards won their final three games and wrapped up the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference, setting up a first-round playoff series against the Cavaliers that starts today at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena.

If the Wizards win the series and spoil LeBron James's first postseason experience, Butler should be a major reason why. In his first season with the Wizards, Butler posted career highs in scoring (17.6 points per game), rebounding (6.2), assists (2.5) and steals (1.69) while emerging as a physical, playmaking presence on both ends of the floor.

After being traded twice, first from Miami to Los Angeles as part of the Shaquille O'Neal deal after the 2003-04 season and then from Los Angeles to Washington as part of the Kwame Brown deal last summer, Butler appears to finally have carved out an NBA home.

He signed a five-year, $46 million contract extension just before the start of the regular season and is a cornerstone of President of Basketball Operations Ernie Grunfeld's effort to build a consistent playoff contender.

Early in the season Butler joked that he has upgraded from "South Beach to Hollywood to the White House."

"The whole thing has been a blessing," Butler said yesterday. "All of it has been a blessing. Getting traded, being here with this team in this situation. Everything worked out for the best and I love being here. I was telling my mom the other day that I'm going to have to get her a house out here because I plan on being here all summer."

It will be Butler's second taste of the playoffs. As a second-year player with Miami in 2004, he averaged 12.8 points and 8.5 rebounds in 13 playoff games. The Heat won a seven-game series over the New Orleans Hornets in the first round before losing in six games to the Indiana Pacers in the second round.

It's taken two trades and three years for Butler to get back, but now that the postseason has arrived, he's ready.

"When you were a kid, this is what you lived for, watching the playoffs," Butler said. "All of the playground kids are going to be getting that popcorn ready and sitting back to watch the show. We've got LeBron out there. He's one of the phenoms in this league, so everybody's going to be tuned to it. It gives you an opportunity to show your talent. If you do something great, the kids will be out there on the playground the next day like, 'I'm Caron Butler, I'm CB-3.' That's how I was as a kid trying to be Clyde Drexler and those guys. It's big to be on that stage and I'm looking forward to it."

Butler's own path to stardom was nearly halted by brushes with the law as a teenager growing up in Racine, Wis. A series of arrests and a stint in a juvenile correction facility could have led to a life of unfulfilled potential, but Butler righted himself, became a high school star and eventually earned a basketball scholarship. At the University of Connecticut, the coachable nature Jordan talked about made Butler a favorite of Coach Jim Calhoun. Now, he'll be sharing the spotlight with James, Gilbert Arenas and the man he was tabbed to replace, Cavaliers guard Larry Hughes.

One inescapable subplot of this series is comparisons between Butler and Hughes. Hughes helped the Wizards win 45 games last season and reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 1982. He signed a five-year, $60 million free agent contract with Cleveland over the summer.

The Wizards clearly missed the chemistry Hughes enjoyed with Jamison and Arenas early this season, but Butler and fellow newcomer Antonio Daniels steadily blended in.

Arenas, Jamison and Butler formed the league's highest scoring trio, Daniels emerged as a solid player off the bench and while the Wizards won three fewer games than last season, they wound up with the same playoff seeding.

The Wizards successfully worked their way through an up-and-down 82-game season in part because in November, Butler put the team ahead of himself.

"It's about being a professional, first and foremost," Butler said. "I thought of myself as a starter but at that time, coach wanted me to fill a certain role so that's what I did. What would I have gained and what would the team have gained if I would've been all selfish, complaining about my situation? That's not what it's about. It's about winning games. It's about getting to the playoffs and contending for a championship. That's what I'm here to do."