The Wizards are trying to get back to somewhat normal without Gilbert Arenas, but the pregrame stunt Tuesday at Philadelphia in which he pretended to shoot his teammates with his hands has unwittingly dragged nearly the entire rest of the team into the fray.
“I really have no comment,” said Antawn Jamison when he was asked about the incident, and then he proceeded to talk about it anyway. “A lot of guys didn’t know what was going to take place. A lot of guys didn’t see that happening. I know you see the photo and you see a certain image but that photo doesn’t justify the way guys viewed the whole situation so once again, it’s just another use of poor judgment. That’s the reason why we’re where we’re at right now… You think we’re going to initiate something serious like that? If you know me, you shouldn’t ask that question.”
Jamison did say the reality of being without Arenas had set in.
“It’s been going on too long, long enough,” he said of the endless issues that have dragged the Wizards down. “We’re definitely sick of it, too much negative publicity, and I think guys are just to the point where we just want to get some positive publicity and turn things around and start winning some games, start having fun. We haven’t had fun in while so my new year’s resolution is just to have fun, go out there and play hard and do everything possible to start winning.”
Asked about the combination of dealing with owner Abe Pollin’s death, the losing and now the Arenas/Javaris Crittenton thing, Jamison said Pollin’s passing was the only thing that couldn’t be controlled. He also made perhaps the best acknowledgement so far of a potential shake-up of the roster.
“It’s just the other things, man, things that you have control over, things that you have to use better judgment of, for us to be struggling the way we’ve been struggling, you’d think everybody would concentrate on basketball. I think it’s an eye opener for the rest of our teammates to let them know that there’s only one thing we should be concentrating on, and that’s basketball.
“It’s just unfortuanate that we didn’t take that philopsohy early on in the season, and for some people, it’s going to affect your life. It’s going to affect, not only the people’s lives involved, but our lives as well. We don’t have one of the best players in the league, that’s affecting everybody. Changes might happen, that’s affecting everybody. The only way this thing can get solved, it’s about the rest of the guys in that locker room putting all this behind us and just concentrating on playing basketball. It’s that simple. It shouldn’t be anything else. It should just be about doing everything possible, playingn hard and just finding a way to get things turned around.”
Add Pick & Roll to your RSS: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sports/blogs/pick-and-roll/index.rss
Follow me on Twitter @craigstouffer
