I need to sleep on this.

I did like this quote, though.

There seemed to be two teams in the locker room — the old heads who honored their profession and were Obama-serious about their careers. And the young knuckleheads, who, left to their own devices, enabled one another to stay children and put off adulthood. They could have used the self-proclaimed “goofball who worked out six hours a day.” He bridged the locker room gap; Arenas knew when to play and when to work.

I feel like this was mentioned somewhere before…

but to say that Arenas won’t have his career deteriorate just because he hasn’t had the specific injury that Penny Hardaway had?

I mean, I hope his career doesn’t end up that way, but that’s awful reasoning.

Every regular here could literally write a different critique based on this article. Example: Gilbert was pushing Jamison and Butler to light a fire under the young guys. No wonder Jamison was fuming a few weeks ago; he was partially upset that he didn’t get on the players early on.

Before he got off the phone, I asked Arenas if he had any preference on whom the Wizards draft in June with their lottery pick. I could hear him sighing at the thought of another young buck to tame. “I don’t pay attention to the JV until they get here,” he said.

Hilarious.

Why did Gil all of a sudden stop sitting on the bench at home games, going on road trips?

Ok sure….he didn’t want to be a “distraction” — or didn’t travel because of “rehab”

Whatever.

The door was wide open for him to be on the bench, on the road, helping the kids.

He just didn’t walk in.

1. I wish Wise would release the full transcript.
2. In some cases Wise puts things in quotes mid-sentence and its not clear whether its from this interview or prior statements Arenas had made, such as the “goofball who works out 6 hours a day” quote. And for instance when he talked about Arenas’ plan for summer training with the young guys, the only quote he included was that it was to “teach them what I know.” I think the rest of that quote would be interesting also. Remember, earlier this season Arenas told Ivan Carter seriously that he was going to play Summer League.
3.Arenas lowers expectations by calling his games this season “rehab” and not a “comeback.”
4. He says that he is the same player, but reminds people that he never was a “big jumper” and never did a “360 half-spin.” Is he trying to reshape our memory of his abilities so that he can lower the bar of “being the same player” he was before the injury?
5. He criticizes those who consider him a thief. Well, I don’t feel that way, but people are certainly justified in being angry that he was not fully forthcoming during last summer’s contract negotiations with the team about the state of his knee and his plan to have a third surgery. The front office said they had not been made aware ahead of time of these plans.
6. He takes the blame that the “young players didn’t get better this season.” I think him taking the blame, which is politeness, is less important than his belief that these guys didn’t improve.
7. He says Young has “Kevin Durant talent”, Blatche has 12 points, 12 rebounds potential, and McGee can be “a factor every night.” He characterizes Young, McGee, and Critt as “projects.” He makes no mention of Pecherov. Is this indicative of a broader sense among the players that Pecherov is a bust and not worth dealing with?
8. He pledges to spend the summer training with the young guys, so whether he follows through should tell us some more about his character and leadership potential.
9. Says he told Jamison and Butler to “get on the young guys.” Previously I think many of us, maybe just me, had expected him to act as a bridge between the vets and the youth. Maybe that’s not how it will play out.
10. “I can’t watch this. This isn’t basketball.” Is this his explanation for his complete withdrawal from the team this year, and failure to be a player-coach from the bench, a role I think it’s fair to expect a max-contract player to assume.
11. “If I went into darkness mood, like training camp, maybe it would have been different.”
Any ideas what he’s talking about here.

Sorry for the length guys, I’m not trying to push my opinions, I’m more putting these observations I had on the article to elicit your analysis, because I’m not sure what to make of most of this interview.

One last bit: Arenas is a super-max-contract player now. With this year gone to injury, he is now making 111 million over five seasons, 22.2 million a year, so he’s got a deal fatter than most of the max players, and should be treated like one of them.

I agree with your assessment. The days of the player coach went out with Bill Russell. Kobe, who regularly treats his teammates like dirt, supposedly forces them to improve by relentlessly pursuing perfection. Even Garnett, was on several terrible Wolves teams, despite his vaunted “leadership” skills. I think Gil nailed it on the head when he mentioned other teams having “2 veterans leave, only to replace them with 2 more veterans.” This team has no leadership, and I’m not sure that the return of self-proclaimed “scorer” is going to help that much, at least at first.

But what do I know, I gave up on this team after the AD trade, which still makes me angry.

Now it reads: “For Wizards, It’s Back to Ground Zero”

Wonder if someone complained about the previous version?