Rodney Wallace was at Verizon Center on Tuesday evening, watching the Wizards go to overtime with the Philadelphia 76ers, the sort of typical activity for a D.C. native two days before Thanksgiving.
It could be while before Wallace gets a chance to regularly visit Chinatown again after he was sent to Portland late Wednesday, along with a 2011 fourth-round draft pick, in a trade with the expansion Timbers that brought central midfielder Dax McCarty and allocation money the other way.
D.C. United president Kevin Payne promised before the end of the season that the team was determined to improve itself down the middle of the field, and the acquisition of McCarty, who Portland had snapped up earlier Wednesday with the top pick in the expansion draft, is a significant first step.
Only 23 years old, McCarty has already played five seasons in Major League Soccer, all for FC Dallas. He had his best year in 2009, with three goals and six assists, and then he helped anchor the center of the park for a team that was arguably the best in MLS for most of the 2010 regular season and advanced to the MLS Cup final.
McCarty has also played for the U.S. national team and was a key member of the U-23 national team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
What remains to be seen is how his arrival will play out in Washington, where D.C. currently – can’t stress that enough, given how crazy the trade market was on Wednesday – has a cabinet full of central midfielders: Clyde Simms, Conor Shanosky, Stephen King, and Kurt Morsink. McCarty is a two-way guy who could pair nicely with Simms, but then again, much is yet to be determined since United still doesn’t have a coach.
As for Wallace, who went to Bullis Prep and the University of Maryland, he will join now former D.C. United defender Jordan Graye – also a D.C. native (DeMatha High) and ironically, a former North Carolina Tar Heel, like McCarty – on the West Coast. (Another former Maryland player, Jeremy Hall, was traded from New York to Portland, too, but he’s originally from Florida.)
Graye was also picked by the Timbers in the expansion draft. He was surprisingly left unprotected by D.C. in the expansion draft despite being marshaled into 20 starts and logging the fourth-most minutes for an injury-ravaged D.C. United defense last season.
His exclusion can in part be attributed to Julius James. D.C. had to protect at least three international players, and James, who is from Trinidad & Tobago, could’ve been one except that he holds a green card and doesn’t fill an international roster spot. Thus, it made the most sense for D.C. to protect Junior Carreiro with that final international slot while sacrificing Graye even though he was far more valuable than Fred’s younger brother this year.
D.C.’s situation at left back is now markedly different as well, and they desperately need Marc Burch to recover fully for next year, since both of his backups are now gone. Two seasons ago, Wallace was only slightly less impressive than Chris Pontius after the two were selected sixth and seventh overall by D.C. in the 2009 MLS SuperDraft. Wallace, a quick and dynamic wing defender, played the first 11 games in 2010 before he suffered a broken leg that cost him the rest of the season.
