Wizards are likely to keep Stackhouse

The Washington Wizards’ season of unreached expectations soon will be over.

Only three games will remain after the Wizards play at Philadelphia tonight. Next week, mercifully, the organization will do what it does best: return to the drawing board that comes out every year at this time.

Recent conversations with Wizards front-office people has revealed that the decision makers haven’t lost patience with two-time All-Star Jerry Stackhouse, who missed 51 games this season because of injury and now comes off the bench when his knees aren’t wracked with pain.

After a Wizards game, radio’s would-be coaching intelligentsia offer plans for the future. Many are advising the Wizards to move Stackhouse, who has three years remaining on his contract.

Ultimately, president of basketball operations Ernie Grunfeld and coach Eddie Jordan will huddle, reach a conclusion and then act on any number of situations that lottery teams are saddled with. But right now, a look inside the spin doesn’t indicate that trading Stackhouse is the order of the day, or, for that matter, the summer.

“I know what Jerry can do, and what I see is a player who is frustrated,” said Grunfeld, who is at the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational scouting potential second-round picks. “He’s not able to do the things that he’s done in the past. But our job is to make sure that everything is in place for him so that he can return to that level, which we haveno doubt he will.”

It has been written here, there and everywhere that it is simply impossible to judge the triumvirate of Stackhouse, Gilbert Arenas and Larry Hughes — or the coach, for that matter — because of the negligible time they have spent together on the court.

It’s a safe bet that had the injuries not come — the three players have missed 106 games — the Wizards would be at least 10 games better than they are. And this year, that would make them a playoff contender in the Eastern Conference.

Even if they wanted to trade the 29-year-old Stackhouse, the list of potential suitors would be short because the opinion around the league — rightly or wrongly — is that he is damaged goods. Whether he is can only be determined in season.

No one doubts that Stackhouse can still play. After all, he was the player most responsible for the turnaround Detroit is enjoying now. He said earlier this week that he is in his prime. He also will tell you — and it is painfully obvious watching him — that he is not healthy.

Anyone thinking Stackhouse’s name would be on the list of unprotected players for the June expansion draft is delusional. Stackhouse is scheduled to make roughly $7million next season. The rules governing the expansion draft will allow the new Charlotte team to take on two-thirds of what the salary cap — to be released later this year — will be.

That said, don’t expect Bob Johnson, Charlotte’s owner and a billionaire, to take on any risks. He didn’t get rich doing that.

Stackhouse has been medically cleared to play, and the reason the Wizards want him on the floor — as opposed to shutting him down — is because he is the only All-Star on the roster. With that comes the responsibility of playing through pain — playing when hurt, not injured — and of showing the younger players what it takes to win.

Because Michael Jordan, about eight years past his prime and playing on bad knees couldn’t do it, that does not mean an attempt at teaching shouldn’t be made by the next guy in line. This year that guy was not Arenas, who tried to come back when he clearly wasn’t healthy. His time will come.

This is why Eddie Jordan and Stackhouse have come to what the coach refers to as a “mutual understanding” that Stackhouse will play in some games and, as was the case in the team’s win over Boston last weekend, sit in others.

Next year, hopefully in good health, he’ll get the chance to lead by example.

Next year. That sounds so, so familiar around here.