With Gilbert Arenas’s absence from Wizards practice due to a sore right ankle extending into a third day on Tuesday, the team is increasingly starting to appear as if it is planning to be without him for its first regular season game on Thursday at Orlando.
Washington head coach Flip Saunders didn’t give any hint of who might be in his starting lineup against the Magic. Whether that had to do with Arenas missing a preseason game with a fake injury wasn’t entirely clear.
“From what happened before,” said Saunders, “You’ll know ten minutes before the game. That’s our new policy.”
Without Arenas, Saunders won’t be tempted to go with a three-guard backcourt. Instead, Al Thornton could find himself in a starting role at small forward after having bounced back himself from a left ankle sprain during the preseason. He was bouncing around Tuesday as he took part in an impromptu dunk contest after practice.
“It’s a great opportunity. Guys have a chance to step up,” said Thornton. “Of course you want Gil out there. He’s an all-star type player. But I think we’re just going to have to go out there and work as a team.”
“It’s going to be a big loss for us, but we’ve been practicing without him in there,” said John Wall. “He’s been sidelined, getting treatment and stuff. We’ve been preparing ourselves in case Gilbert doesn’t play, so it’ll be tough not to have him out there, but you’ve got to move on and keep playing. You know you got other talented players on the team that can take up some scoring slack that we’re going to be missing.”
Wall and Saunders have played down the potential butterflies that the 20-year-old rookie might feel in his first start in a new arena, Amway Center, against a team that was in the NBA Finals two years ago. But Wall could end up logging heavier minutes right away if Arenas isn’t available, which was also the case during preseason, during which Wall averaged more than 35 minutes a night while Arenas missed all but three minutes over the final four games.
“We need him, there’s no question,” said Saunders of Arenas. “You take a guy that last year, before he went out, he was a 22-point scorer and seven and a half assists so you’d like to put that in your lineup. What it does is it puts more pressure on your main guards, John and Kirk [Hinrich], those guys maybe have to play more minutes than maybe what you’d like them to until you get him back, whenever that is.”
