The Gilbert Arenas scandal may not have been so bad for the Wizards. It allowed them to recognize that, Gil or no Gil, they're no longer outfitted to be taken seriously in the East.

Oh wait, they loaded up this summer with Randy Foye and Mike Miller. In the preseason, many important thinkers designated DC and Dallas as teams that could finish anywhere from lottery to home-court. Sometimes, all you can say for sure is that you don't know for sure what's going to happen.

Yet now the Wizards are free, free to clean out their high-priced garage by any means necessary and maybe even turn the page on this era. Arenas's contract will likely not be voided, but the rift between the team and its star guard is at this point beyond repair. We've lately heard reputable murmurs about Antawn Jamison and fellow shipwreck victim Caron Butler welcoming trades, with no shortage of suitors burning up the telegraph lines.

Today in the Washington Post, Michael Lee suggests that moving Jamison to the hated Cavs, as hard to stomach as it might be, could be the Wiz's Pau Gasol trade. As in, a short-term loss that positions them for for the future in a real way. However, it's worth noting that the hype surrounding the Gasol trade may now have swung too far in the other direction.

A storm is expected to drop a record two and a half feet of snow on the Washington, DC area today, which is more than enough to ground air traffic and make flying into the area an impossibility. As a result, Saturday night's game between the Wizards and the Hawks that was scheduled to take place at the Verizon Center has been postponed.

The Wizards played in Orlando on Friday and the Hawks were at home in Atlanta, and neither team was going to be able to make it into the DC area in time for tonight's game. A make-up date for the contest has not yet been set.

The last time an NBA game was postponed because of the weather was on Jan. 13, 2007, when the Hornets' flight was unable to make it to Milwaukee in time for a game against the Bucks.

ORLANDO -- Caron Butler sure sounded like a guy who was saying goodbye to the Washington Wizards Friday night, accepting the realization that a trade was coming soon.

He just made it a little tougher to let him go.

In his best performance of the season, Butler scored 29 points in the second half, including the game-winning basket with 0.5 remaining to beat the division-leading Orlando Magic, 92-91, Friday.

It was like he just nailed an audition. There certainly were a lot of teams watching him.

"Washington is home. I had a great time here. And I'll always love the city, but this is a business and I know anything is possible,'' Butler said after the game when asked about possibly being traded. "I had more success here than I ever had before. I feel like the city adopted me. But you have to take the bitter with the sweet. I'll try and have some magnificent moments before the deadline.''

ORLANDO -- Veteran forward Antawn Jamison was so excited to start this season -- so high on his team's chances -- that back in October he tacked up a life size photo of the NBA Championship Trophy in his locker, a daily reminder of his goal.

He hardly can stand to look at it now.

Jamison, now in his 12th NBA season, was crushed emotionally by the implosion of the Washington Wizards that started early with injuries and chemistry problems, then culminated with the pistol-waving and season-ending suspension of Gilbert Arenas.

Jamison, a two-time All-Star and still well-respected around the league, was anticipating the most successful season of his career. Now he is standing in the midst of the ruins and the rubble, left to survey what is left behind.

"We can go one of two ways at this point. Either guys can get serious enough, come together and start playing the right way, or we continue to do the things we've been doing, and dig ourselves an even deeper hole,'' Jamsion told FanHouse Friday morning before a workout. "It's the toughest thing I've ever been through.''

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."

Black History Month has been celebrated in some form since 1924. For sports fans, it is a chance to reacquaint themselves with those who broke down barriers in all areas of competition and all segments of society. Many are now household names and American icons: Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Wilma Rudolph, Muhammad Ali, up to Tiger Woods, Tony Dungy and Venus and Serena Williams today.

Every day throughout February, FanHouse will shed light on the other figures in the history of sports whose breakthroughs were as significant as those mentioned above, but who aren't as instantly recognizable as pioneers. During Black History Month 2010, FanHouse aims to give them their due.

Al Attles and K.C. Jones

First two African-American coaches to meet for a major pro championship

At the Super Bowl in Miami three years ago this week, no story was bigger than the two coaches -- Tony Dungy of Indianapolis and Lovie Smith of Chicago, not just the first black coaches ever to lead teams to the NFL's biggest game, but only the second time two black men had faced each other in a major sports league championship.

The first and only other time that happened, virtually nobody talked about it. Including the two coaches.

"The thing I cherish most about it, and a lot of people might not think it's right, is that they didn't bring a lot of attention to it,'' Al Attles told the Baltimore Sun in 2007 about his Golden State Warriors meeting K.C. Jones and the Washington Bullets in the 1975 NBA Finals.

WASHINGTON -- Less than 24 hours after the one-time face of the franchise was suspended for the rest of the season, the theme of the day around the Washington Wizards was "move on.'' The team practiced Thursday morning -- in its Verizon Center practice facility still adorned with blown-up images of Gilbert Arenas on the wall -- before leaving for its game Friday night in New Jersey.

Still, head coach Flip Saunders and captain Antawn Jamison were in a reflective mood about their experiences with Arenas, who had led the Wizards to their greatest run of success in two decades before first injuring his left knee three seasons ago, then violating the NBA's gun policy by bringing three unloaded firearms to the locker room last month.

No question, David Stern just got it right by telling Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton to get lost for a year without pay after their gun mess. Still, the NBA commissioner has a problem. The same goes for his counterparts in other professional sports, particularly the NFL's Roger Goodell.

Come to think of it, college presidents and those who run their frequently roguish athletic departments join Stern, Goodell and others in sitting a cocked pistol away of watching that problem evolve into a disaster.

Somebody is going to die. We're likely talking about more folks than that. For verification, there is the chilling prophecy of Dr. Harry Edwards, the professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California-Berkeley. I've known Dr. Edwards for 30 years. During that time, we've discussed everything you can imagine regarding trends throughout athletics, and rarely is Dr. Edwards wrong.

Actually, Dr. Edwards never is wrong.

So this isn't good.

Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton were suspended by the NBA for the remainder of the season on Wednesday, and in an afternoon conference call, commissioner David Stern made his reasoning for the severity of the punishment for the two Washington Wizards players as plain as possible.

"We have preached to them in writing, and actually in person, on this very subject, and yet they brandished firearms, and that just cannot be tolerated,'' Stern said.

The NBA's action puts a finite number on the indefinite suspension slapped on Arenas Jan. 6, after he mocked the growing publicity over the Dec. 21 confrontation with Crittenton in the team's Verizon Center locker room with his comments and by pantomiming firing guns in a pregame huddle. It also disciplines Crittenton for his role in the incident, for which he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unregistered firearm possession in Washington, D.C. Superior Court on Monday.

When Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and virtually everyone else under contract to the Pacers in 2004-05 was suspended for their role in The Brawl, David Stern's wrathful hand came down swiftly and decisively. The unfortunate events at Auburn Hills had left an awful, ugly gash across the face of the National Basketball Association, and those in wrong were sent to the basement immediately. The criminal cases that resulted from it were, for Stern, an afterthought. Evil had been done in the halls of basketball -- a workplace debacle -- and his job was to censure Artest and his cronies.

Fast forward to Jackson's little incident in the parking lot of Club Rio. While it looked bad for the NBA to have players discharging firearms in public places, Stern had to tread lightly. If he, ahem, jumped the gun and went hard at Jackson to match the outcry, he could end up looking irrational, or even facing problems with the Players Union, if S-Jax was to be found innocent or plead to a minor offense. When the sin is committed away from NBA property, it can't be interpreted as "workplace"; Stern then has to defer to the law and respond to its conclusions. The CBA matches specific levels of penalty with specific convictions. That's why Delonte West is still out running the streets.

Today, Gilbert Arenas was informed that he'll be away from the game for the remainder of the season. Arenas's situation involved a serious violation of both the law and NBA workplace regulations. Therefore, in theory Stern could have taken action against Arenas as soon as the facts were known, and with little or not concern for how the courts ruled. All of which only makes the way things unfolded more perplexing.