Sep 17 2008
The Gilbert Arenas Injury Saga Continues
Mr. Fraud (Image Courtesy of Washington Wizards Blog)
- April 4th, 2007: Arenas tears the meniscus in his left knee after the Bobcats’ Gerald Wallace accidentally crashes into him. Arenas has surgery and misses the remainder of the season.
- November 2007: After spending the summer rehabbing his knee too harshly, Arenas returns for the first handful of games in the new season. Surprise! His knee is plagued by swelling. It is announced that he has a cartilage tear, which results in more surgery and more time off the court.
- April 2nd, 2008: Arenas announces a surprise return against the Milwaukee Bucks. Obviously rusty, he gives up the game-winning shot to the Bucks’ Ramon Sessions.
- April 30th, 2008: The hobbled Arenas announces he is shutting it down for the rest of the season just hours before game five of the Wizards’ first round series of the playoffs against the Cavaliers. He fails to alert his coach of this decision, who learns of the news from the media.
- May 2nd, 2008: The Wizards are eliminated by the Cavs for the third straight year. Injuries are blamed once again and no one in the organization accepts responsibility for such mediocrity.
- July 13th, 2008: Now a free agent, Arenas accepts a $111 million dollar deal with the Wizards over six years. The team offered him $127 million, but Arenas agrees to take $16 million less to “help the team.” How charitable! Aside from also overpaying Antawn Jamison, this was the only significant decision the Wizards made all summer. Brilliant!
- September 17th, 2008: Screwed again. Wizards’ beat writer Ivan Carter announces that Arenas has had yet another surgical procedure to remove debris from his knee. Arenas will miss at least the first month of the season, but I won’t be surprised if it is longer. I have little confidence that Arenas will ever be the same player again, but we’re stuck with him. I leave you with this gem:
“At the end of the day,” he said, “I wasn’t planning on playing until January anyway. Everybody has known I was gonna miss training camp.”
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Gil should just sit on the bench till he is 100 percent healthy. In the mean time, we should get some young talent at guard…. Shaun Livingston?
He never should have came back from last season. His head is constantly in the wrong place and our medical staff is completely inept. I am worried because Antonio Daniels’ wrist is definitely messed up, so it won’t be a surprise if he goes down. That leaves us with Dee Brown as our only available point guard. I like him, but he’s definitely not ready to be any team’s go-to guy at the point.
I just wonder when Gilbert is going to grow up and realize that it’s not all about him.
Yea, I’m worried about AD’s wrist too….as he opted not to get surgery….but at least he got a second opinion, can’t say the same for Gil.
I do like the Juan Dixon signing. He’s not going to help the defense, but with the way Nick Young played in the summer league, the Wiz will need more backcourt scoring off the bench (and 3-point shooting too).
I’m not as concerned with Dixon’s lack of traditional point guard skills…..in Eddie Jordan’s pro-Princeton offense, those aren’t always necessary.
Truth About It = great site.
I’m glad Juan is coming back too…do you think Dee Brown gets cut because of it?