Wizards close to trading Butler to Mavericks

The Washington Wizards and Dallas Mavericks are close to a major trade that would send forward Caron Butler, center Brendan Haywood and guard DeShawn Stevenson to Dallas for forwards Josh Howard and Drew Gooden and guard Quintin Ross, according to a league source.

ESPN.com first reported that the deal was close to being finalized.

The trade would dramatically improve the Mavericks, who have struggled going into the All-Star break.

Dallas has been looking to upgrade both at small forward, where Howard has been slow to recover from injuries the past two seasons, and at center, where the Mavs gave Orlando's Marcin Gortat an offer sheet last summer that the Magic matched.

Haywood is having a career year for the Wizards, with career highs in scoring average. Butler has struggled with new coach Flip Saunders' offense, but is still a strong scorer who'd fit in in Dallas.

The trade would provide significant luxury tax relief for the Wizards, who are looking to lower their tax burden in the wake of the season-long suspensions of Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton.

Howard would potentially provide relief for Washington next season because the final year of his contract is a team option.

"You’re great." "No, YOU’RE great." "No, you’re GREAT." "NO, you're great." "NO, YOU’RE GREAT."

Kobe Bryant is the all-time leading scorer for the Lakers, having eclipsed Jerry West’s 25,192 points with 44 during the Lakers' loss to the Grizzlies Monday night. With the Lakers next win, Phil Jackson will pass Pat Riley for the most regular season wins in franchise history with his 534th victory. Are we looking at L.A.’s best player and coach tandem ever? The argument can be made, that's for sure. Even more incredibly, upon further investigation, it appears that every guy in this ’09-’10 squad has a shot at setting a Lakers record. Here’s the breakdown of titles the current line-up is trying for:


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Floyd Mayweather vs. Shane Mosley?

Along the cancellation of the welterweight unification clash between Shane Mosley and Andre Berto, Berto issued a personal press release stating that due to the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti killing several of his family members. His sister and niece survived but are homeless and Berto finally decided he couldn’t concentrate on the fight with everything that is going on in Haiti. He is physically and emotionally unable to prepare for his Jan. 30 bout with Mosley and as a result, will withdraw from the bout.

Given the close proximity to the date of the event and the difficulty in finding a suitable replacement for Berto, the event will be cancelled entirely. All tickets previously purchased for the Mosley-Berto fight can be refunded at the original point of sale.

Mosley commented from his training camp in Big Bear, Calif. and said, “I’m disappointed that the fight has been called off, but I understand that Andre is going through a very difficult time. My heart goes out to him, his family and the people of Haiti during the aftermath of this terrible tragedy. I’m sorry for the losses that Andre and all of the Haitian people are suffering. I have everyone in my prayers.”

Golden Boy is hoping to match Mosley with Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s unlikely that the matchup would land on March 13, the date Floyd was considering facing a lesser opponent. One very possible date for Mosley-Mayweather is May 1 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, a date Golden Boy has already reserved.

In a recent interview between Kevin Lole from Yahoo sports and CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, Richard Schaefer, Schaefer was quoted saying“Shane Mosley obviously always wants to be in big fights. What we are going to try to see is if we can pursue a fight with Floyd Mayweather. I had some talks [with Mayweather’s representatives] and we’ll see how that goes. What I’m going to be doing in the next 24 hours is to work nonstop to see if we can put that fight together.”

“In boxing, you have three truly super mega fights [that can be made] and this is one of them. This is one of those fights that boxing fans and sports fans, and the general public, have been looking forward to for many years. If we can pull that off and have Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather fight each other, I would been extremely happy and extremely pleased for all the fans out there.”

“I’m going to sit down with our marketing people and our sponsors, as well, and determine what the right time frame would be to properly promote and activate that fight,” Schaefer said. “On the surface, with March 13 just around the corner, I don’t think that would be the right thing to do. If you’re going with a super mega fight like that to go against Pacquiao-Clottey, I think that would be totally wrong and I would not want to do that.”

I can’t blame Berto for pulling out he did the right thing, family clearly must come first and for that I respect him a lot more.

What’s your opinion about Berto and the possible fight between Mosley-Mayweather?

Hoop Dreams Hopefully Reality..

2005-2006, Bonn, Germany..

I never had an agent, just happened to be in the right place at the right time! I wouldn't have traded this experience with anything! I definitely would like 2 give playing ball overseas another try, but there are a lot of politics in the business, more about "WHO" you know! I'm currently playing ball in a Fall League in Stockbridge, GA 2 strengthen my game footage to eventually send out 2 agents through email and another chance at basketball! It's a tough grind, if u don't believe in yourself, who will? I BELIEVE I can play at a high level and maintain my competitive nature, but only time will tell!