Editor's Note: Bumped from the diaries, so everyone can discuss this. Personally, a part of me is thinking everything's okay, but there's another voice shouting out "Rememeber MJ's comeback." There are a lot of eerie parallels; the overwork, the lack of communication between player and coach, etc. Gil's not MJ, so that makes me more hopeful, but I'm waiting to see Gil in action before judging him.

Also, see jvflail's diary and DarrellWalkerFan's comment. -PM.

Just saw this article on ESPN.com.  Does anyone know what this means?  Is having a knee drained serious/does it show that his knee is not healing properly?  Obviously the fact that he is missing practice is not a good thing and will not help him find his shot any sooner.  It just appears that it could be a very long season for the Wizards if this is bad news.  I just hope that I'm overreacting and that he will be fine and the Wiz will recover from a slow start.

I was a little surprised when I stumbled upon the ESPN Experts Q and A and see that several of these writers did not have the Wizards in the top 8 in the east next year.  None of these experts have the Wizards as a lock for the playoffs next year due to Boston's improvement as well as the improvement of the perennial cellar dwellars New York, Charlotte, Atlanta and Philadelphia.  

Basically, am I missing something?  How did the Wizards go from a top team in the East prior to season ending injuries to our best players to a team without a guaranteed playoff bid (especially over teams like New Jersey, Orlando and possibly Philadelphia).  To be fair only Henry Abbot said it was possible for the Wiz not to make the playoffs next year while the rest of the commentators picked either Orlando or Miami.

It simply worries me that these people who get paid to follow basketball for a living do not consider the Wizards as one of the top 5 in the east.  Are we here overhyping the additions to the team and the health factor of our top 2 or are they completely underestimating us?  Failure to make the playoffs next year could be a turning point for the franchise.  We know Gil values winning and as a free agent next year, he could be gone if we fail to show improvement.  

Chad Ford just wrote this article for ESPN insider regarding Kobe's continued insistence on a trade.  He states that the Lakers would need a star player in return and would have to send Kobe east in order for Kobe to be traded.  He mentioned two players, Paul Pierce and Gil as the most likely players to be sent back to LA.  His trade proposal (with gil) looked like:

Bulls get: Kobe
Lakers get: Gil, Chi's #9 (who Ford says they would most likely draft Yi) and Etan Thomas
Wizards get: Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas and PJ Brown

My first thought is that this trade flat out sucks for us.  But say Gil pulls a Carlos Boozer and leaves for somewhere else following next season.  Should we risk losing him for nothing?  While im not a huge Gordon fan, Thomas has some potential and is (going to be) a solid defender.  I would also presume that the deal for PJ Brown is a 1 year deal so we would get some cap relief for the next few seasons.  Anyways, my question to all is "Is this worth it?"  We would get some cap space which would be nice but would be losing our star player.  We would send out a starting line-up of:

PG: Daniels
SG: Gordon
SF: Butler
PF: Jamison
C: Haywood

with a core of songaila, thomas, blatche, #16 and O-pec off the bench.  It's a deep team, i'm just not sure that its a top 4 team in the east, which is subsequently not a forward step.  Any thoughts?