Did the Wizards Dodge a Bullet?

I'm one of those Wizards fans who was a little sad to see Larry Hughes leave the team, but was really curious as to why Management didn't put up more than a fight (they had to know that he was going to head to a rival team).

Well, when word leaked that Chicago was willing to ship him out, I thought this may be an opportunity to get a solid player and maybe dump some guys who probably wouldn't be here next season anyway. But after seeing this, maybe the Wizards (and their 12 wins) are better off not trying to get him back:

Think about it; how badly did the Bulls and Knicks want to delouse themselves of their respective canker sores?

So badly that Larry Hughes'contract ($12.8 million, $13.6M next season) almost certainly would have been bought out by managing partner Jerry Reinsdorf had GM John Paxson been unable to deport him. So Hughes was swapped for Jerome James, inarguably the worst mid-level free-agent signing in NBA history, Tim Thomas, whom Chicago exiled him the last time the Knicks sent him there until it could reroute him to Phoenix and disposable 3-point clunker Anthony Roberson.

With Stephon Marbury on, ahem, hiatus, the Knicks evidently felt obligated to fill the under-the-malignancy-cap void.

Hughes' mantra is straight from the Supreme Court justice handbook . . . he ain't ever comin' off the bench. Not starting was the issue in Chicago. When the 6-foot-5 guard returned from the injured list roughly six weeks ago, coach Vinny Del Negro offered him 30 minutes a game (sound familiar?) at the point, off guard and small forward. He impudently declined.

"Larry doesn't give a damn about winning or losing unless his team win and he's the focal point," a Bulls official harpooned. "All he cares about his starting, playing 36-to-38 minutes and getting his."

Talk to some Cavaliers, professionals who don't bother anybody and, generally, slam nobody, and they croon the same cheerless tune. "It's about Larry and that's all it's about," one Cav confirms.

Another says, "All I'll say is he's a different guy. It was hard to figure out what is important to him. He actually has a decent understanding of the game. . . . but not as much as he thinks."

He couldn't make it work with uber-Alpha Personality LeBron, nor a team full of moderately-tempered, B+/A- players. Maybe things would be different if he came back, but from the looks of it Ernie Grunfeld didn't want to take that risk.