The Washington Wizards are coming from one of their worst seasons in their franchise history, with only 19 wins and they were the worst team in the Eastern Conference last year. Everything went wrong for this team... the team had a 4-23 record around Christmas; Gilbert Arenas played just 2 games and they were late on the season and head coach Eddie Jordan was fired in November 24th. Probably we would assume that the Wizards were going into a rebuilding process, however the organization thinks that this team can compete and get back to the top in just about one year.

In the off season, GM Ernie Grunfeld gave up in thinking in the future by thinking in the present, when he sent the No. 5 overall pick, along with Oleksiy Pecherov, Etan Thomas and Darius Songaila to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Randy Foye and Mike Miller. Without Arenas last season, the Wizards had a terrible lack of depth in their roster and Grunfield made everything he could to solve this problem. Without Arenas, the Wizards' backcourt was one of the less productive units in the league and when you have Dee Brown, DeShawn Stevenson, Juan Dixon and Mike James competing for a starting position in the backcourt, you can't expect good things to happen and Grunfield felt the sense of urgency to boost the Wizards' backup.

At the end of the day, everything will be around of Gilbert Arenas. When he's healthy, Arenas has already showed that he is a legit contender for the top scorer trophy in the league. The last time he played a full season, back in 2006-2007, he averaged 28.5 points, 6.0 assists and 4.6 rebounds. The season before that, he played in 80 games and averaged 29.3 points to go along with 6.1 assists. Besides that, we all also remember all the huge shots he took on the buzzer to win the games for the Wizards. Unfortunately, since then Arenas hasn't been able to remain healthy and the Wizards were always a terrific team "on paper", but they couldn't translate such talent to the court. Arenas said that his knee is 100 percent healthy for this season and the Wizards need him badly to be on the floor. Without him, the Wizards can still be a good team, but they can't take the next step without him.

Meanwhile, the two other all star players of the team, Butler and Jamison, weren't able to carry the team without Arenas last season, but still both had solid seasons. Antawn Jamison is coming from a big season, in which he averaged 22.2 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.2 steals and 1.4 3-pointers per game. However, in a team who only won 19 games, you don't receive many credit for those numbers and Jamison's great season was basically useless for the team. Also now with 33 years, Jamison was able to stay healthy in his tenure for the Wizards. He missed only 4 games on his last two seasons and with the team's new conjecture for this season, if he is able to duplicate last season's numbers, then the Wizards would surely appreciate that.

Caron Butler is in a similar situation of Jamison, as he had a good personal season, but that wasn't enough to help the team. In his four seasons with the Wizards, Butler missed substantial games each season, but at least it was almost always with minor injuries and he played at least 58 games in each season. He is a solid all around player who can do everything on the floor and his last season's numbers are a good indicator of that, as he averaged 20.8 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.6 steals, while shooting 45.3 % from the field and 86 % from the charity stripe. Like Jamison, the Wizards only need Butler to duplicate these kind of numbers for this season and they will be happy with him.

Assuming that their Big 3 will remain healthy, the Wizards have for this season a nice core of players who add quality and depth to the team.  Mike Miller is coming from a disappointing season in Minnesota last year, but he is now motivated to play in a good team and he is the kind of player that spreads the floor for his team due to his range and skill on the perimeter. With so many offensive threats on the floor at the same time, he will have plenty of opportunities to bury the opponent's defenses with his treys. Naturally that we can't expect him the same numbers as in 2006-07, when he averaged 18.5 ppg because he won't shot so many times, but Miller can still be an important piece for this team.

In the same deal as Miller, Randy Foye joined the Wizards and he will be a good backup for Gilbert Arenas. Foye has been like Arenas a first-shoot Point Guard who averaged 16.3 points per game last season with the Wolves. He needs to improve his playmaker abilities, but the Wizards have in Arenas a similar kind of player and so, Foye can learn something with him. To compete with him, the Wizards have in Nick Young a young prospect for the future and last season Young was a streaky scorer who averaged 10.9 points per game in 22 minutes per game of action. He struggled sometimes because he had too much pressure on his hands. For this season, everything will change and Young can develop smoothly into a better player. The Wizards have also Mike James, DeShawn Stevenson and Javaris Crittenton who can give more minutes and depth to a vastly improved Wizards' backcourt.

For the frontcourt, the Wizards are expecting Brendan Haywood to be healthy, as he missed nearly the entire 2008-09 season with a wrist injury. The Wizards lacked last season a consistent interior defender and Haywood will be "that" guy. On his last full season, Haywood averaged 10.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks and he will provide some experience to a young frontcourt.  JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche and Dominic McGuire were on a rollercoaster last season, where they showed some flashes of potential, but they were also highly inconsistent through the season. Now with one more season on their belts, the Wizards need them to improve dramatically because the East has now more talent than never in the frontcourt. If the Wizards want to compete against Dwight Howard, Shaquille O'Neal or Kevin Garnett, they will need their frontcourt to be solid.

Head coach Flip Saunders was one of the best available options in the market and the Wizards made a wise choice. Saunders has in his heads an extremely talented and deep roster and the Wizards will surely get more wins than they got last season. However, just reaching the Playoffs won't be enough for them, as they want more, but they may need some luck, as injuries have always killed the Wizards' chances over the last years.