I still love this guy. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gilbert Arenas would like to go back to school and teach Coach K a lesson. The Washington Wizards' All-Star figures he could score "84 or 85" points if he got a chance to play Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski, who cut Arenas from the U.S. national team last summer. Arenas has promised this season to take out his frustrations about the national team on Krzyzewski's Team USA assistants, Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni and Portland coach Nate McMillan. Arenas scored 54 points against the Suns last month and has said his next 50-point game will come against the Trail Blazers on Feb. 11, prompting D'Antoni to say: "I can't wait to see what he does against Duke. He's gonna kill Duke." "He'd like to see what I'm going to do against Duke," Arenas wrote in a posting this week on his nba.com blog. "I thought it was funny because if I have the chance to go back to college, I'll give up one NBA season to play against Duke. "One college game that's five fouls, right? ... 40-minute game at Duke, they got soft rims I'd probably score 84 or 85. I wouldn't pass the ball. I wouldn't even think about passing it. It would be like a NBA Live or an NBA 2K7 game, you just shoot with one person." Arenas was one of the final cuts from Team USA before last year's world championships. The team announced he was released because of a strained groin, but Arenas said the injury was minor and a convenient excuse to cut a player who was getting little playing time. Arenas, who has made a career out of using snubs as motivation, made a late surge in the All-Star fan voting to pass Vince Carter and earn a spot in the starting lineup, announced Thursday. Arenas trailed Carter by more than 200,000 votes as of Jan. 11, but he nipped Carter by 3,010 -- the fourth-closest margin ever -- to gain the spot alongside Dwyane Wade for the East in next month's game at Las Vegas. "Dreams do come true, no matter what people say," Arenas said. "Just work hard and things come to life. I am a living truth of it."</div> SOURCE
I love the way Arenas always plays with a chip on his should because of all the doubters. I'm a VC fan and I admit he deserved to start over Vince. How awesome would that be to see him go out and play Duke lol.
<div class="quote_poster">Kensaku Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I still love this guy. </div> I miss the guy, putting aside his skill, he just seems like the type of guy you want on your team. He keeps everybody loose. Odd mood swings aside, I'll always root for Arenas.
<div class="quote_poster">Playmaker15 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I love the way Arenas always plays with a chip on his should because of all the doubters. I'm a VC fan and I admit he deserved to start over Vince. How awesome would that be to see him go out and play Duke lol.</div> You don't need to be a VC fan to understand Arenas deserved to start. I never understood that logic.
<div class="quote_poster">AnimeFANatic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I dunno... his behavior bothers me a bit. He comes off as a baby to me.</div> Well, he is young. I think he's just having fun and the stuff he says should be taken lightly.
Yeah, I rather have Gil than Baron. Then we'd have our first bonafide all-star since Chris Mullin. Baron's no all-star. He can't shoot. What bugs me is he thinks he can shoot. Gil... he's like Michael Jackson. Weird sleeping in an oxygen chamber (but at least he's not into sleeping with small children).
<div class="quote_poster">AnimeFANatic Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I dunno... his behavior bothers me a bit. He comes off as a baby to me.</div> Agree, I was a huge fan of his when he was here but since he left a few years ago I now look at him without bias and hes just kind of annoying. Seems like an attention whore and its a shame that he can't motivate himself to be as good as he can be every night instead of really trying on nights where he has to show someone up. Also, for a guy who is described by many as being so passionate and loving of the game he is a total and complete waste of talent defensively, hes got the physical tools to be a better defender than Kidd or Payton but he absolutely doesn't care about that side of the ball.
Good points about defense, Run BJM. When Baron plays D, he can really lock down his opposition. He's physically more gifted than Arenas is or ever will be.
<div class="quote_poster">Kensaku Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Good points about defense, Run BJM. When Baron plays D, he can really lock down his opposition. He's physically more gifted than Arenas is or ever will be.</div> Agree, Baron is very underrated on defense and like Barnett has been saying lately hes been very aggressive and sort of Pat Riley-esque in that he attacks relentlessly and eventually the refs just get used to it because they can't call it on every possession. Baron does reach in a lot but this year he hasn't been burned because of his reaching in, I've noticed that a lot of times he'll be matched up with a great scoring SG and he'll just back up and let them shoot and right when they kill the dribble to shoot he gives a little swipe and touches the ball and it totally throws them off at the last second, he did it to Kobe a few times and Kobe missed every shot. Hes got extremely quick hands and hes a pretty smart defender, never crowds guy like Pietrus does becaase hes got the hands to make the person pay for trying to drive on him. Pay close attention next time he switches on to a big SG or SF, they almost never score on him because they think they can take him but he usually annoys them and they try to force a shot because they think they have a mismatch. Disagree that Baron is more gifted than Gilbert physically he probably was when he was younger but not anymore. Injuries have caused Baron to lose a lot of explosiveness, though hes still very athletic for his size compared to most PGs. Gilbert is bigger, quicker, longer, and stronger than almost every PG in the league. If he gave 20% effort he could shut down most PGs, hell he could be a lock down defender on SGs if he put his mind to it. He just doesn't care about defense. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">A lot of you are suffering from Arenas Envy.</div> Most Warrior fans seem to still love Gilbert, as most NBA fans do, but I don't know if they'd think hes as great if they saw him play all the time. I saw him play extensively when he was here and hes on TV all the time, hes a GREAT scorer, not a great overall player though IMO. His Ast/TO ratio is absolutely embarrassing for a PG, hes not even top 50 in the league in that aspect, hes shooting 43% FGs which isn't too great, he plays no defense, like I said elite scorer, not a great player. He hasn't lead his team anywhere, even in the east and hes got a pretty talented team with a good coach. Its tough to say who I'd rather have on my team, Gilbert can take over and win games but out west I don't know if he can do it by himself. Baron shoots 1% lower on FGs, gets more assists, has a much better Ast/TO ratio, gets everyone involved, and plays good defense, and still gets you 20 ppg.
The reason why I'm probably not such a Gilbert fan was that I was not into basketball/warriors when he played. So when I hear things about Gilbert I just see an eccentric player trying to get attention. I'm a bigger fan of Baron's than Gilbert. As said above, he's an elite scorer, but Baron is way ahead of him in terms of court vision and assist/to ratio. But hey, we got Monta anyway. He's our other second round steal without all the eccentricities.
There is no question that Arenas has some issue. And in wrong circumstance, he has a potential to become Artest. However, it's really nice to see him managing himself exceptionally to become where he is now. Now that he accomplished awful a lot, it would be interesting to see how he will go from here. Will he remain being excellent regardless of chips on his shoulder? Will he keep searching for those chips? And, how will he react if he doesn't meet expectations such as PO success and championship? It's too bad that we lost him, but Arenas still remains as an interesting character to observe, both on and off the court...
Everyone should just be nice to him and give him everything he wants. Then he would not have any "chips" on his shoulder. Then maybe he wouldn't play as well. It seems as though he thrives on people writing him off and in a sense wants to, just so he can show them up and get even more attention.
<div class="quote_poster">shapecity Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">A lot of you are suffering from Arenas Envy.</div> Heh, very keen observation. Arenas chose the number "0" because he said everyone told him he would amount to nothing in the NBA. Even before his first Warriors practice as a rookie, he already had something to prove. Now? One of the top players in the game, and potential MVP.
He wore "0" at Arizona too. He said it was becuase everyone told him that's how many minutes he would get under Lute Olsen.
I still keep thinking that Arenas would threaten the Warriors by leaving the organization at some point if we couldn't win him a championship. At least the guys we have, haven't said I give up I want out (yet).
