A day after sitting out the final scrimmage of Wizards training camp with a sprained right ankle, Gilbert Arenas was back on Monday as the team returned to the Verizon Center practice court, participating fully with tape showing just above his right sock.
On one play, Arenas did get in trouble with assistant coach Sam Cassell after leaving John Wall solo to retrieve an inbounds pass. Covered heavily by Andray Blatche, Wall got a forced ball poked away by Lester Hudson, who nearly transformed the quick turnover into an alley oop to Blatche. Arenas had been at the other end of the court, and Cassell looked squarely at him afterward, pointing out that Arenas was the other guard and should’ve been available for the inbounded ball.
“My bad,” Arenas responded.
“Gilbert went full go today, looked pretty good, worked hard,” said Wizards Flip Saunders, but he wouldn’t give any indication of the minutes that Arenas might play in Washington’s first preseason game at Dallas on Tuesday.
“I don’t know, don’t really know,” said Saunders. “He’s been off for a couple days. He played today. For him, I think we’ll have to wait and see how he feels tomorrow, if he’s able to play at all.”
Arenas himself pulled his black cap down over his eyes and walked past the press assembled in the hallway with his focus squarely on the floor as he departed to catch the team plane, but he should have to make himself available to the media after Tuesday’s game against the Mavericks.
“I hope he can play,” said Wall. “That would be great for us, to see where our chemistry is. That’s what the preseason is for, get that chemistry down with your teammates and see how y’all play together and know where to get people the ball in certain areas. I think we can play good together. He’s a player that can make shots and also attack the basket at the same time.”
Speaking of Wall, the rookie point guard suffered a nice cut above his right eye after taking an elbow from Blatche going for a loose ball. It didn’t require any stitches but had to be glued shut.
“We had to rough him up,” said Blatche. “Welcome to the NBA. Let him know what he’s going to get a taste for. Hopefully, he’ll wipe it off and do the job he does.”
Also on the injury front, there are no concerns with Kirk Hinrich’s shoulder, which was bruised during Sunday’s scrimmage, but his minutes may be somewhat limited until later in the preseason.
“We know what Kirk can do and how he plays and everything,” said Saunders. “We’re not going to waste it too much in preseason. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Sean Marks (hamstring) also appeared to be sitting out again, but the Wizards are still yet to make any roster cuts and will bring the whole group on the road.
“We have some important things to evaluate in our team,” said Saunders when asked about his goals now that training camp is complete. “Our up front guys, who’s going to be there. We still got a couple spots potentially to fill on our team, what guys are going to fill those spots. And our young guys, John, even JaVale [McGee], Hilton [Armstrong] hasn’t played a whole lot lately, we gotta get those guys a lot of minutes. It’s going to be more important for us to continue to play hard, work hard on execution, get those guys minutes that it is going to be important for – some people just feel you gotta win every game and go out in preseason. We need to establish our ability to compete. If we do that, we’re going to be in games and have a chance to win games. We’ve got to try to facilitate the development of some of our young players.”
