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.”

Better Days:

Sorry Gilbert, you’re not worth that price tag. I hope you remember these words…

“Sign Antawn first,” he said. “Then I’ll take a pay cut to keep the team intact.”

Take a pay cut?

“Yeah.”

Really?

“Yeah.”

How much?

“Depends on how much he wants.”

“Typical Gilbert,” Jamison said when told of Arenas’ plans. “He wants to make sure we keep everybody together and he’s letting everybody know he’s willing to make a sacrifice to do that.”

7/3/08: Arenas agrees to take $16 million less…better than nothing.