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."

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Magic center Dwight Howard rarely makes a guarantee, but he made one Wednesday afternoon.

Things are about to change.

And that's not a good sign for the already-beleaguered Indiana Pacers, and especially for center Roy Hibbert, tonight.

It was Hibbert, the lightly-regarded yet steadily improving center who embarrassed Howard earlier this month by getting 26 points and eight rebounds to lead his team to victory over Orlando.

"He had an awesome game, but that won't happen again,'' Howard said confidently Wednesday after an early workout. "He had a good game, but like I already said, it won't happen again. We'll do whatever it takes to get out of this little funk people think we're in.''

So much for homophonic resurrection in New Jersey for Shawne Williams. The Nets today waived the embattled swingman, just recently acquired from Dallas in some goofy cap maneuvering. When New Jersey picked up Shawne, it simultaneously waived its own resident problem child Sean Williams, who just last spring was arrested after some mall hijinks.

The newest ex-Net (that'd be Shawne, keep up!) faces handcuffs of his own. Williams has been indicted on multiple counts of drug possession and conspiracy to manufacture, deliver or sell controlled substances by a Tennesse grand jury, according to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. The conspiracy to manufacture, deliver or sell charges are tied to the alleged possession of some codeine-based syrup, a concoction made famous (in part) by a 2000 song by Memphis hip hop group Three 6 Mafia. Williams grew up in Memphis, and briefly attended the University of Memphis before being drafted by the Pacers in 2006.

Williams' indictment follows from a massive Memphis Police Department investigation called "Operation Lockdown," which according to the Commercial-Appeal has netted 24 defendants.

LeBron James is such a singular player that it's strange to speak of him as a test case. But in a sense, he was. James was a player who frequently made us question all we knew about the universe, or at least basketball; his role as "savior" was both more literal and more high-flown than any draft pick -- especially one so young -- in recent memory. That his game regularly blew our collective mind only added to this mystique. You don't get called a "messiah" without offering up a regular dose of revelation.

But enough slobbering. The LeBron James story did work out, and in John Wall, we have the first player since then who has really captured the draftnoscenti's imagination like James. I am not discounting Greg Oden and Kevin Durant; however, there were questions about each of them, and their informal competition for the number one spot became the real story. Like James, or the cheese, Wall stands alone. And if you think teams aren't clamoring for a chance to nab a player who, symbolically, is James redux, you're absent your temporal lobe.

That's how you end up with column like the latest Mike Wells offering in The Indianapolis Post. It's called "John Wall: The Ultimate Consolation Prize," but the title's misleading. In fact, it kicks off with a fiery paean to the Kentucky supra-talent, then reminds readers that when the lowly Nets come to town, their permanent midnight in the standings means they're also on the verge of a Wall-ian epiphany. Totally gnostic, I know.

DENVER -- Minnesota big man Al Jefferson on Monday laughed off reports he soon could be traded and said he believes Timberwolves president David Kahn that the team isn't looking to deal him.

Yahoo! Sports reported Sunday Jefferson recently was offered to Indiana for forward Danny Granger, but the offer was turned down, and that there are chemistry issues between Jefferson and fellow Timberwolves big man Kevin Love. However, Kahn said Monday the team isn't looking to deal Jefferson by the Feb. 18 deadline.

"I reassured (Jefferson) there was no truth to (the Yahoo! report) whatsoever,'' Kahn told FanHouse.

But that wasn't news to Jefferson. He said he had a meeting with his agent, Jeff Schwartz, in Minneapolis last Wednesday after Schwartz had talked with Kahn.

When Indiana traded for T.J. Ford, it wasn't so much a masterstroke of team-building as a dice roll with Jermaine O'Neal as the vig. Indiana desperately needed a point guard, and desperately wanted to shake the aging, injured O'Neal. Ford was a constant injury risk in Toronto and bristled at coming off the bench behind Jose Calderon, a superior lead guard. (You typically don't want your point guard to be your most selfish player.) But Ford playing well for the Raptors, and was seen as a potential answer for Indiana.

Ford hasn't been nearly as effective in his new locale, though. Void of major offensive threats around him (Troy Murphy vs. Chris Bosh, in other hands), Ford's assist numbers have fallen off the side of the planet. His scoring hasn't really improved in its place, and his defense is continually (and unsurprisingly, given his size) ineffective. As such, Ford looks much more like a third guard than a starting point guard for a playoff team.

As details of the investigation into a reported gun standoff between Wizards players Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton continue to come to light, there's been a burbling hope among Washington fans that the team could perhaps use this incident, if it turns out to be true, to shed Arenas' massive contract. Arenas is owed some $96 million over the next five seasons (including this year), and at this point (at age 27) he's not performing up to his annual pay standard.

But if recent history is any indication, the Wizards won't void Gil's contract because of this incident, no matter how severe the penalty from league offices.

Again, the details of the standoff are unconfirmed -- the New York Post reported that Arenas and Crittenton drew firearms during a locker room dispute over a gambling debt, while Yahoo! Sports reported only that D.C. police (working with the U.S. Attorney's Office) are investigating the circumstances under which the Wizards and the NBA were made aware of Arenas housing firearms in his locker at the Verizon Center.

Here's something refreshing! A bad team is playing poorly, and the coach isn't going to take the fall. The Pacers weren't expected to be much better than an iffy contender for the East's final playoff spots. And sure enough, the Pacers aren't very good, an outside contender for a useless playoff berth. As Indiana sits as the conference's third worst team to date, coach Jim O'Brien (who has been unsuccessful throughout his tenure with the Pacers) has been believed to be on the hot seat.

But according to his boss Larry Bird, O'Brien is in no danger of losing his job. In fact, Bird went further, according to Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star: he blamed the players, and said he's actively looking to trade a few of them. This isn't a surprise, but may be difficult as none of Indy's high-priced players have expiring contracts, and few teams are looking to add salary for the 2010-11 season.

The NBA league office Tuesday morning agreed with Magic coach Stan Van Gundy and his complaint Monday night about excessively hard fouls against center Dwight Howard.

The league informed the Magic Tuesday that Pacers forward Troy Murphy will be assessed a Flagrant I penalty for his personal foul against Howard in the third quarter Monday night. They also rescinded the technical foul that was called against Howard when he and Murphy tangled after the play. Officials Monday night originally awarded technical fouls against both players.

Murphy had delivered a hard foul against Howard, grabbing him around the shoulders and neck to prevent him from scoring. Howard used his right arm to push Murphy away. Pacers coach Jim O'Brien wanted Howard ejected for throwing a punch, which would have meant at least a one-game suspension.

The league agreed Tuesday that no punch was thrown, and no further penalty would be assessed against Howard. After the game Monday night, in which the Magic won, much of the talk centered around Howard and whether he was being officiated correctly.

Van Gundy spent much of his post-game press conference complaining that Howard was being treated unfairly, that flagrant fouls should be called when he is hit around the neck and head.

"It's out of hand, what they're letting people do to Dwight (Howard),'' Van Gundy said. "If you're going to let people continue to hit him around the head, and grab him around the neck, those are flagrant fouls, and they need to be called.''

Shortly after Van Gundy's press conference, Murphy said his foul on Howard was merely "a hard foul.'' Pacers center Jeff Foster said that Howard is allowed to be more physical than others because of his star status.

Many of the bad teams in the NBA today at least can sell hope for the near future, believing the salary cap space they created for this summer will allow them to rebound dramatically by next season.

The Indiana Pacers don't have that luxury. What you see now is all you'll get next season, too. Their hope for the future is much further away.

Once one of the league's most consistent winners -- 16 playoff appearances in 17 years -- the Pacers are stuck below mediocre for another two seasons. And this won't be pretty.

They are paying for past sins.

When the decision was made to clean up the roster -- stemming partially from the notorious brawl with Detroit in 2004 and several other unsavory off-the-court incidents -- they sentenced themselves to a long and painful rebuilding process.

By dumping Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley -- good players, questionable characters – and getting little in return except for average players and bad contracts, they changed the course of the franchise.

Unfortunately, they have a team now without stars (although Danny Granger did make his first All-Star team last season), which is a sure recipe for failure.

"We don't have anyone who can command double teams all the time,'' Pacers forward Troy Murphy said. "And that makes things tougher all around.''

And unlike the Knicks, Nets, Timberwolves, and Bulls, some other bad teams, the Pacers won't have the salary cap space to jump into the free-agent market this summer. Sure, they'll get a high draft pick, but that could take years to develop. For them, relief in the form of a star won't come until 2011 when they can become the biggest player in the free-agent market.

"If you want to win and win big, you have to have more than one star,'' conceded Pacers coach Jim O'Brien. "Look at the top five teams in the league, they all have multiple stars.''

The Pacers (8-14) are a perfect example of the way it works in today's NBA. On Monday, they played the Magic close -- even led throughout -- but faltered down the stretch when All-Stars Dwight Howard and Vince Carter took control. They played hard. They played smart, but they had no answer for Howard and Carter at the end.

Granger is out for another five weeks with a foot/arch injury. And there was nowhere else to turn when they really needed a basket. Guys like Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Dahntay Jones are nice role players, but they don't carry a team.

The Pacers won 35, 36 and 36 games in each of the last two seasons. Those totals won't rise this season or next. It's the price they are paying for loading and then unloading their team of talented but troubled players.

The remake of the current team is going to be dramatic. But it's not going to change overnight. Right now, 2011 just sounds like a long time away.