The Wiz, Bernard Hopkins and McGee's Nickname

Lemonhead. (By Lance Murphey - AP)

Antawn Jamison is still the Wizards' elder statesman, in a way, and Gilbert Arenas is still the most likely to say something bizarre, and Brendan Haywood still issues the best one-liners, but the go-to Bog quote for the 2008 season is Caron Butler. No question. Like, ask him about possible big-time rookie Javale McGee's nickname.

"We're thinking 'Lemonhead' or something like that," Caron told me yesterday. "You know ,he's yellow with the kiddie little face, he's always smiling and stuff."

He's yellow? Like, his skin?

"Bright yellow, man," Caron said. "He's a bright yellow Lemonhead."

More seriously, in recent days Caron has taken to comparing both himself and the Washington Wizards to Bernard Hopkins. Caron has always been a huge boxing fan--he saw Hopkins fight Winky Wright live in Vegas last summer--and Hopkins's surprise domination of Kelly Pavlik last weekend offered some inspiration. And not even because Pavlik is from some dying industrial city in Ohio.

Javale McGee.

"I mean, I love Bernard Hopkins," Caron told me. "I think his story, his whole thing is inspirational. Obviously I've been through a lot of adversity in my life, so people that I can relate to, I always relate to. One of the situations that I relate to with this team is that man right there. A lot of people say he can't do something, he can't go out there and beat a 26-year old kid.

"They're saying maybe the Wizards will not even make the playoffs. You've got a lot of naysayers buying into that concept. And we know what we're capable of doing. We know what we can do, we've got the talent to do it. And now it's time for us to go out there and do it, so that's what's going to happen. And then, when it's all said and done, we're gonna look and stand tall."