What Now, Abe?

With the acquisition of Elton Brand, the Philadelphia 76ers move up the ranks of the Eastern Conference to become a contender. Roger Mason also split town to sign with the San Antonio Spurs. This is awful news for my beloved Washington Wizards.

So, as of now, the Wizards will put this roster on the floor:

1. Gilbert Arenas starts at the point, backed up by Antonio Daniels and maybe Dee Brown (not the Digital Dunk Dee Brown: the one who played second-fiddle to Deron Williams at Illinois)
   
2. DeShawn Stevenson starts at the 2 and hopefully shares time with Nick Young.
3. Tough Juice starts at small forward, backed up by Dominic McGuire, I guess.
4. Antawn Jamison holds down the 4 and he's backed up by Darius Songaila and Oleksiy Pecherov...and I guess sometimes Andrey Blatche and JaVale McGee?
5. Brendan Haywood handles center, backed up by Blatche, McGee and a hopefully healthy Etan Thomas.

This isn't a bad lineup. It's just that there are seven teams with better lineups. How does Washington deal with Philadelphia, Orlando, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit or Toronto? And it's worth mentioning that Atlanta's young players will be better. What about Miami? That's 8 teams right there that could push the Wizards out of the playoffs.

Did Ernie Grundfeld build this team for 2010, when Boston becomes horrible again, Cleveland loses LeBron and Detroit is too old to matter? I guess dumping Arenas and Jamison this year is a bad idea since the draft is pretty mediocre next year, but isn't it worth it to Jamison (and fans) to go for the NBA title? I'm scared that Larry Brown is going to coach up his Bobcats and they'll be an amazing team in a year or two.

Mostly I just hate being so close to winning it all and then falling just a teensie bit short.