Can the Wiz Learn Anything from the Pacers?

Who knows what the future holds for the Washington Wizards. Maybe Gilbert Arenas will end up contract-less and out on the street. The team may very well end up in hands outside of the Pollin family. For the rumor-happy, there's Antawn Jamison or Caron Butler being shipped off to a team loading up for a championship pounce. And for all the youth on the roster, who exactly is the future of the team?

However, today Michael Lee of The Washington Post brings up the unthinkable, and yet inevitable, possibility that the Arenas/Javaris Crittenton scandal will hamper the team for years to come -- no matter what bold moves are made. The Wizards will for the foreseeable future be "that team with the guns in the locker room." That's a shame, because up until this season, it would have been "most fun locker room in existence."

Lee goes so far as bring up the post-Brawl Pacers, getting former Indiana star Jermaine O'Neal to back him up: "You never actually recover. Not only did it derail that year, it knocked the floor from under us, organization-wise. [The Brawl] was a cloud over the organization."

There's really no way of comparing the two crimes against humanity. For Lee's purposes, though, the two are similar in the way they took over the team's life, forced coaches and staff to spend quality time with the legal sysem, and then hovered in the background even after all the destruction had finished. He likens the downfall of Arenas to Ron Artest's long road out of Indianapolis, one that included many good-faith attempts at patching things up. And yet Artest would eventually demand a trade, stating plaintively that "I still think my past haunts me here."

Reggie Miller, Pacers legend whose last season just happened to be that disastrous 2004-05, believes that in the end, The Brawl was just too nasty to get past. Actually, amend that: He thinks the Pacers still haven't gotten past it:

"The Pacers have never, ever recovered from that night. Things will never be the same," Miller said. "Being on a team when total chaos hit, it was deflating. We thought we were primed to get back to the conference finals and get over the hump and get back to the championship. Then all hell broke loose. It took the wind out."

If you look at where the Pacers are today -- a decidedly mediocre team held together by a bunch of friendly fellows and quiet star Danny Granger -- you can still see the after-effects of the Brawl. Their fan outreach and, most crucially, approach to personnel have operated like decent men in a haunted house. Most famously, in 2007 the Pacers shipped out Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington, getting Troy Murphy's abysmal contract and sound work ethic, and some other guy, in return. Jackson and Harrington gave the Warriors the jolt they needed to make the playoffs, where they offed the Mavericks in what many call the biggest upset ever.

Now Jackson's playing some of the best ball of his career in Charlotte, under no less a taskmaster than Larry Brown. It's worth mentioning that Ron Artest seems to be doing well with the Lakers, even if his time with the Kings and Rockets was shot through with its fair share of drama. I have no idea what has happened with the Pacers, other than Granger's ascent. But darn it, they aren't attacking fans.

The Brawl was ugly, without a doubt. And there, the Pacers didn't initially cut and run like the Wizards brass. But in the end, everyone -- players included -- thought a fresh start was the best option. Unfortunately, players can get second (and third, and fourth) chances; franchises are stuck with their history. Maybe the less a team does, the better. Nick Young is a player closely associated with Arenas; marketing sense would say he's now a liability. Andray Blatche still has promise, but he's had his problems, and isn't the best listener. Cant the Wiz risk keeping him around, even if nothing actually goes wrong?

However, what's to be gained if Young or Blatche exit for pennies on the dollars, and the Wizards are still left wearing the NBA's equivalent of the scarlet letter? Do they keep him and prepare to stand their ground? Certainly, it can't be any worse than where the Pacers have found themselves. There's no easy answer here, but Indiana suggests that at some point, a team has to stop living in fear.