Now that Nick Young isn't playing in tonight's Goodman League vs. Drew League game, it's time for the insults to come out.  This exchange between Young and former mentor Gilbert Arenas is one of the zillions of reasons why Twitter is awesome.

(Young's response evidently got deleted, but here's my retweet).

Looks like this thing got escalated.

UPDATE: Nick's response to the deleted tweet.

Aw man, no fun.

Not to rehash this again, but here is Gilbert Arenas spitballing on his Twitter account about Gungate while crossing that line to where keeping it real goes wrong:

everyone knows about my troubles last yr..the only reason u do know about it is becuz my money making days were up...as long as ur making sumbody lots of money they will let u do what ever u want..when ur time is up they will expose u to the world. if u ever hear about anything in a locker rm is becuz sumbody in high power wants it to get out...once all the free shoes are gone..i will be attacked by the media...becuz theres nothing to be gain anymore. i know what ppl are sayin..i brought ....into the locker rm..theres been full blow paint ball shoot outs in locker rms, being in the nba u see everything...what i got in trouble for ive seen over a dozens times.. i did give them the tool to take me down so its know ones fault but mines..and ive learned and got wiser from it..like i said ive made mistakes when u feel like u can do anything u want u try..and i got smacked down to reality when i went to far, so lets move on..if u cant forgive me then f--k off..if u have forgiving me..I MIGHT mess up in the future jk i know i will lmaoooo

Like I said, when you get a guy like Arenas on something like Twitter, you get realness, but there's a flip side to that.

Last night, Gilbert Arenas scored 20 points in 22 minutes in the Magic's 88-85 Game 4 loss to the Hawks.  He came in early in the third quarter and really filled it up, driving to the basket and covering on layups in a way we haven't seen him do all season.  Alas, the Magic lost, because Stan Van Gundy called the final play for Hedo Turkoglu instead, but it was still a great performance by Arenas in a season where he's had very few.

I don't know how many of you watched the game, since it was on Easter Sunday night.  But if you followed me or any other blogger-types on Twitter, you witnessed a lot of cheerleading for Arenas.  The thing I always have to keep in mind is that Arenas is the blogosphere's original gem, so we're a bit biased. Also, I think my fondness for Arenas is well-documented in the annuals of Bullets Forever history.  Therefore, I'm writing this post now because I'm curious if any of you all had the same reaction as me watching that game.

The thing is, I'm asking this question because Arenas is very much an outsider to me now.  I think it's become clear that Ernie Grunfeld and the rest of the management team knew they had to deal him.  I think it's becoming clear they knew he just didn't have anything close to what we thought he may have had left.  I also think it's pretty clear that, even though Rashard Lewis has his own issues, the Magic ended up on the short end of that trade.  A lot of my rooting interest with Arenas disappeared at the end of our Arenas Tribute day.  

But I'll admit that it has resurfaced at times this year, none moreso than last night.  I really wanted Arenas to lead the Magic to victory, and I can't help but admit that.  My question is: was anyone else watching that game feeling the same thing?

The Wizards visit Gilbert Arenas and the Orlando Magic tonight, which of course gives Arenas the chance to step on his soapbox.  Yesterday, in an interview with reporters, he repeated something he's said before: that the Wizards need to stop this youth movement and surround John Wall with veterans.  

Via Michael Lee.

"Hopefully, [the Wizards make] the right decisions by building with veterans around him, like they did with Rondo, like they did Derrick Rose. You've got to put veterans so he can learn how to play winning basketball. If he stays with all these young guys, they are just going to learn how to lose and be okay with it."    

Ah yes, the dreaded "bad habits" argument.  

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It's been about a day since Gilbert Arenas was traded to the Orlando Magic, and the saddest part about it to me is that it looks like the Wizards decided they felt moving Arenas for anything was a good move.  

I say sad because there very well may be a lot of truth to that statement.  We don't really know what's been going on behind the scenes the past couple weeks.  Ted Leonsis implied that Arenas may have wanted to be traded, and his on-court demeanor with the younger players certainly makes it seem like he was frustrated with his situation.  It's possible that the Wizards really had no choice but to move him for anything, and that having him on the roster going forward would just make things worse.  Again, we really don't know what's going on behind the scenes here.  

But it's still sad that Arenas' value was Rashard Lewis.  If Arenas has the worst contract in the NBA, Lewis' is up there.  It's better than Arenas', because it lasts for one year shorter and it's an interesting trade asset in 2012/13 because only $10 million of the $22.7 million is guaranteed.  But it's still a very bad contract, and it's a player whose skills have declined significantly over the past couple years.  Kelly Dwyer summed up Lewis' problems well here.

Amongst rotation players, only converted small forwards Danilo Gallinari and Jawad Williams had worse rebounding rates (the percentage of available rebounds you pull in) than Lewis this year, and that's not a stat that can be blamed on Howard's ability to clean the glass. Lewis doesn't get to the line, doesn't post up any more, and his contributions were limited to hitting above-average (36.7 percent) amounts of 3-pointers. But after hitting just 1.8 per game this season with Orlando, something tells us they'll be able to live without him.    

And yet, at the end of the day, that was all Arenas is worth.  There's really no way to tell if anyone is to blame for that.  Maybe Arenas' trade value was impossible to recover any more than this.  Maybe Ernie Grunfeld messed up and didn't do enough to get more value for him.  Maybe Grunfeld knew this was the best he could do.  We really don't know.  I can't point the finger at anyone here, because this was such a difficult situation for everyone.

So it's hard to really judge this trade.  All we really can deduce is that the Wizards felt like the act of moving Arenas is more important than the package that comes back.

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Ernie Grunfeld just spoke to the media for a few minutes prior to tonight's game about the Gilbert Arenas trade.  Here's a summary of his remarks.  He really talked up Rashard Lewis a lot and made it sound like, to me, that he felt Lewis was a better fit for this mix than Arenas.  That's kind of a striking statement on Arenas, if you ask me, since I'm not sure about Lewis' veteran leadership.  

Anyway, his comments are below the jump.

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It looks like the Gilbert Arenas trade is done.  Ken Berger of CBS Sports is reporting that the Orlando Magic have made two trades.  First, they traded Vince Carter, Marcin Gortat, Mickael Pietrus, a first-round pick and cash to the Phoenix Suns for Hedo Turkoglu, Jason Richardson and Earl Clark.  That set in motion the second trade, which right now looks like a straight swap of Arenas for Rashard Lewis, per Chris Broussard's earlier report.
 

Michael Lee says the deal involving Lewis is now "close," so you can expect it to happen today.  

Lewis has two years left after this year on a maximum contract signed in the summer of 2007.  He is scheduled to make $21.1 million in 2011/12 and $22.7 million in 2012/13.  However, Lewis' salary is only initially for $10 million in that final year and only escalates if he meets performance incentives, according to Sham Sports.  Arenas has three years and $62 million left on his deal after this year.  At best, the Wizards will save about $31 million over the course of the contract.  At worst, they will save around $18 million.  However, they won't get anything else back in the trade.  

There will be lots of time to reflect on the end of the Arenas era, and in fact, we are planning a day-long tribute to Arenas sometime early next week.  At this point, though, I'm just sad.  I wish we could have receive more than Lewis back, but we don't really know just how much discontent Arenas was showing behind the scenes.  It's possible that he was prepared to leave anyway and this was the only thing Ernie Grunfeld could get for him.  Orlando isn't going to be this desperate again this year, so maybe the trade possibility would have passed by.  Still, it's a disappointing return on the surface for someone who gave us so many memories.

More later.  

UPDATE: Well, this Rashard Lewis tweet pretty much confirms it.

Update - This has been confirmed in the press room by Craig Stouffer and Mike Lee (Via Sean)

If you're tired of Gilbert Arenas, then skip this post.  I honestly don't blame you.  If not, you're going to want to read Chris Mannix's Sports Illustrated story on him.  The full thing is here, and it's certainly a revealing look at what's going through Arenas' head right now. 

The most newsworthy part of the story is the very beginning.  Arenas is now saying that he "faked" the injury in the preseason not to let Nick Young play, but rather because he was scared about the reception he'd receive.

Last Thursday, after practice in Washington, Arenas told SPORTS ILLUSTRATED that the real reason he sat out wasn't, as he originally told reporters, to rest his thrice-surgically-repaired knee, nor was it the excuse he gave the next day, that he wanted to give backup point guard Nick Young the chance to play. "I was really scared of getting booed," says Arenas. "It's a little crazy because I was here with Kwame Brown when Kwame was scared to go out there. I used to be like, Man, it's just boos. Now here I was six years later, and I was him. I was scared to go out there."

Even I am getting tired of how much Arenas' story is changing.  It's crying over spilled milk now, but I think Arenas' fears were unfounded.  Based on the reception he received on Saturday night, he would have been welcomed back just fine.  

Other stuff:

• Arenas and John Wall are apparently getting along extremely well.  Their first interaction was awkward, but they are now "fast friends" that hang out "24/7."  Arenas is apparently peppering Wall with scouting reports and arriving early to the gym to shoot with Wall.  That's really, really good to hear (even if it's coming from Arenas himself).
• Arenas said he thought about retiring, and was actually serious about it.  "As much as people were down on me, I was down on myself," says Arenas. "The suspension broke my spirit. I kept thinking, This isn't what I signed up for. I did something stupid and I regret it to this day. But we all f--- up. I just thought I didn't want to be a part of this anymore. I thought the league could do without another knucklehead running around. I thought I'd retire for a year or two and try to make a comeback later on."   See, this is, to me, the kind of thing someone says when they're still trying to figure out how to respond to adversity.  They swing from denial to overreacting (the "woe is me" thing).  I doubt Arenas seriously could have retired like this.
• Arenas said he's getting inspiration from a movie called Undisputed III, a direct-to-DVD movie about a fighter that suffers a knee injury and comes back to be the best fighter in the world.  The protagonist is a brooding character, which explains Arenas' stand-offish nature with the media.
• We talked about the shoe-pooping quote yesterday, but it certainly looks like you can read it as him taking a bit of a shot at Andray Blatche.  

"I've disgraced my legacy here. For me to move over for John Wall is a no-brainer. What's the point of my fighting with him all day? It isn't going to make me look any better. It's not like I think I'm God's gift to the NBA and can't step aside for somebody else. I can move aside for John Wall. That's no problem for me."