I’m glad to see some interest in this idea from at least one Pacers fan. I would be willing to do either trade, and I especially like your first scenario. I would be willing to trade Gilbert and Etan for Jermaine O’Neal straight up, the 11th draft pick for our 18th would be a bonus for me. Here is my thinking:

Gilbert is coming off of two knee surgeries. When healthy, he’s an explosive scorer and a late-game closer, but lacks in defense. The big problem is, he hasn’t been healthy in over a year. He is such a fierce competitor that he twice this season came back from his injury too early, causing him to reaggravate his knee both times. Even while playing injured, Gilbert still is very effective offensively, but he lacked a lot of his explosion to the rim and his defensive lapses grew even worse than before. Still, I was optimistic enough to hope for his return to the Wizards this upcoming season, until he officially opted out of his contract this month and repeated his ultimatum of a max contract. He did say he is willing to sign for a little less than max money if that meant resigning Jamison (which I think the Wizards should do), but he would certainly want significantly more than the $12.8 million he is opting out of, so his and Antawn’s salaries would preclude (Wizards GM) Ernie Grunfeld from picking up any other decent help. Some players are never the same after blowing out their knee, and I’m hesitant to see Ernie give a guy a 6 year deal starting at around $16.4 million (probably not $15 million, see this link for more details) who hasn’t proven he can play healthy in more than a year.

The Wizards are a mediocre playoff team with a healthy version of their current roster. Their biggest weaknesses are defense (especially in the paint), size, and low-post scoring. Despite having a plethora of forwards (Jamison, Butler, Blatche, Songaila, Thomas, Pecherov, and McGuire), almost all of them are pillowy-soft on defense and the ones who aren’t (Butler, McGuire, maybe Songailia) don’t have the size to guard other teams’ big men. Haywood showed real improvement this past season, but he only has the stamina for about 30-35 MPG, and that’s if he doesn’t get in foul trouble (which happens often because he’s the only defender capable of guarding opposing big men). Cleveland, as you probably all know, is very good at taking advantage of our weaknesses in the playoffs. The game scenario goes something like this: use Ilgauskas to get Haywood in foul trouble early, then absolutely abuse the Wizards in the paint and on the boards. Without Haywood in the game, opposing defenses collapse on Jamison and basically turn the Wizards into a jump-shot only team. A healthy Arenas helps this with his penetration, but there is still only so much a 6’4” guard can do in the land of the trees.

Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that JO is the messiah for the Wizards in terms of all of these needs. But I certainly think he can help a lot, if he can stay healthy. Playing for a team that’s already playoff caliber without him may help motivate him in this regard. If he can give us 16-20 points, 7-9 rebounds, and a couple of blocks a night, I’d take it in a heartbeat. Really I would just want him to defend the paint well, especially against opposing PFs/Cs. Butler and Jamison are more than good enough to provide the scoring.

As for the scoring drop from Gilbert, Caron has shown that he is a better player when Gilbert is not on the court. I’m not exactly sure why. Caron is a good player alongside Arenas, but when Arenas went down, Caron really stepped up his game. When Arenas came back, Caron regressed, especially in the playoffs. So while I don’t buy into the theory that the Wizards are a better team without Arenas (which a lot of people were propagating over at Bullets Forever), I don’t think the dropoff without Arenas is worth $16.4 million a year. On the other hand, Arenas could provide a lot to a team looking for a primary scorer and clutch shooter. Arenas averages close to 30 points a game when healthy and often gives you a 40-50 point scoring night. His field goal percentage is deceptively low because he takes a lot of 3-pointers. His true shooting percentage when healthy was .565, on par with LeBron James, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony.

As for Etan Thomas, he’s a serviceable center when healthy, but clearly overpaid at $6.8 million. He’s got a decent array of low-post offensive moves, but he’s not a good defender. He’s also coming off of open-heart surgery and hasn’t played in over a year. All things considered, Ernie (and a lot of Wizards fans) would love to dump his contract, if he could.

So again, I think this is a good deal from my perspective.

You kind of burst my bubble, but I’ve decided to propose this trade in our contest anyway. At least it’s better than this one.

Also, to be fair to Arenas, when he was healthy he was consistent. He rarely scored less than 20 points in any game. He often would score 40 or more. The team has played inconsistently during this timeframe, but I blame that on the coach, not Gilbert.